Infra Insight Blog

On July 23, the Georgia State Transportation Board (STB) voted to accept the selection of Northwest Express Roadbuilders (NWER) as the apparent best value proposer for the $840 million Northwest Corridor managed lanes P3 project located in Cobb and Cherokee Counties.  The project is the largest transportation infrastructure project in the history of the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT).  It includes two reversible tolled managed lanes along the west side of I-75 between its interchanges with I-285 and I-575.  Also, above the I-575 interchange, one reversible tolled managed lane will be added on the I-75 center median to Hickory Grove Road and a similar new I-575 lane will extend to Sixes Road.  Motorists will be able to use the managed lanes by choosing to participate in the Peach Pass program administered by the State Road and Tollway Authority, who is partnering with GDOT on the project. 

NWER’s proposal of $599,001,817 contributed to an estimated $100 million reduction from the previous overall project cost estimate.  In the press release issued by the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT), STB Chairman Johnny Floyd thanked Governor Nathan Deal for his leadership and all those who worked on the procurement to date.  Also, Darryl VanMeter who is GDOT’s Innovative Program Delivery Engineer acknowledged the quality of all three proposals received for the project and appreciated each proposer’s efforts and diligence.   

The P3 design-build-finance contract is expected to be finalized later in the year with construction commencing in 2014.  With this timetable, the project is targeted to open for traffic in 2018.