US 76 in Georgia

According to 800zipcodes.com, US 76 is a US Highway in the US state of Georgia. The road forms an east-west route in the north of the state, from the Tennessee border at Chattanooga via Dalton to the South Carolina border at Clayton. The route is 254 kilometers long.

Travel directions

The road begins at Graysville, a southern suburb of Chattanooga, where US 76 in Tennessee enters the state of Georgia parallel to I-75 and then heads southeast. The area consists of low hills with quiet streets with houses without a high density. It doesn’t take long to reach the town of Dalton, where you cross Interstate 75, the highway to Atlanta. It also crosses US 41, which runs parallel to I-75. US 76 then turns east and is a 2×2 lane road until Chatsworth, where it intersects US 411, the road from Rome to Knoxville in Tennessee. US 76 has to go south through a mountain range and then to the east through the Chattahoochee National Forest. At Elijay, one crosses SR-5, a major highway that leads to the northern suburbs of Atlanta. The area is very densely forested and mountainous. The road again has 2×2 lanes here, until Blairsville, where it crosses US 129, the road from Gainesville to Knoxville. The road then continues through the Appalachian Mountains, right along the border with North Carolina, but the road just misses that state. The mountains here run to about 1100 meters. At Clayton you cross the US 23, the road from Atlanta to Asheville. The border with South Carolinathen follows in the form of the Chattooga River. US 76 in South Carolina then continues to Anderson.

History

US 76 was one of the original US Highways of 1926, but at the time it only ran in South Carolina. In 1932, the western starting point was changed from Greenville, South Carolina to Chattanooga, Tennessee, establishing the route through Georgia.

The four-lane section through the mountains in northern Georgia between Blue Ridge and Blairsville was constructed in the 1980s, as was the 2×2 section between Dalton and Chatsworth. In 1982 the Ellijay bypass opened. In the first half of the 1990s, the road between Elijay and Blue Ridge was widened to a 2×2 divided highway.

US 82 in Georgia

US 82 is a US Highway in the US state of Georgia. The road forms an east-west route in the south of the country, between the Alabama border at Georgetown and Interstate 95 at Brunswick. The route is almost completely developed with 2×2 lanes and is 377 kilometers long. Administratively, the road is numbered SR-50 and SR-520.

Travel directions

US 19/US 82 around Albany.

At Georgetown, the road crosses the Walter George Reservoir reservoir, which also marks the border between Alabama and Georgia. US 82 in Alabama comes from Montgomery. The road here has one lane in each direction and runs through densely wooded area to the east. Cuthbert crosses US 27, a north-south route from Tallahassee to Columbus. For north-south traffic there is a bypass in front of the town. The road then heads east through a circular farming area, with forests circled away to make way for farming. At Dawson the road curves to the south east and from here the road has 2×2 lanes. There is also a central reservation, but no grade-separated intersections. The road then continues to the southeast, reaching the city of Albany, which has a population of 77,000 and a conurbation that is twice as large. A bypass has been implemented as a highway around the city. It also crosses US 19, the north-south route from Tampa to Atlanta. The road then continues to the east, through an area that is less densely wooded, with regular open fields. Via Sylvester the road leads to Tifton, a regional town where Interstate 75 crosses. The highway runs from Tampa in the south to Macon and Atlanta in the north. It also crosses US 41, which runs parallel to the highway. Another road one crosses is theUS 319, which runs from Tallahassee to Fitzgerald.

The road also has 2×2 lanes after Tifton and is a major east-west axis, although the road is not overly busy. At the village of Alapaha, one crosses US 129, a secondary US Highway that runs from Live Oak in Florida to Fitzgerald and Macon in the north. The area then becomes more densely forested and at the village of Pearson it crosses US 441, a north-south route from Lake City in Florida to Douglas and Athens in the north. The road then continues to Waycross, one of the major interchanges of the Southern Georgia secondary road network. Here one crosses the US 1 which is double numbered with the US 23, which runs from Jacksonville to Augusta. It also crosses another east-west route, US 84, which runs from Valdosta toward Savannah. There is a bypass around Waycross, which means that traffic does not have to pass through the town. The road then continues east and crosses US 301 at the village of Nahunta, the road from Folkston in the south to Jesup in the north, thus forming a regional secondary route. The road then continues through the dense forests to the coastal town of Brunswick. Here, US 82 ends at Interstate 95, the highway from Jacksonville to Savannah.

History

US 82 was added to the network in 1932, and was not yet passing through Georgia at the time. In 1949, the eastern terminus was changed from Tuscaloosa, Alabama to Waycross, Georgia, already establishing much of the route through Georgia. In 1956, the eastern terminus was extended even further to US 17 at Midway. However, in 1989 the terminus was moved to US 17 in Brunswick, with US 82 running east from Waycross instead of northeast. The old section from Waycross to Midway then became part of US 84.

Significant upgrades have been made to US 82, particularly on the eastern half of the route. The most high-quality upgrade was an Albany freeway bypass, which opened about 1976 and is also part of US 19.

US 82 was later completely widened to 4 lanes between Albany and Brunswick, largely as a 2×2 divided highway, but also partially as a 5-lane highway with a center turn lane. The first 2×2 parts appeared from the late 1970s and early 1980s, initially as approach roads to the larger towns. The first longer 2×2 stretch was between Albany and Tifton, which already had 2×2 lanes in its entirety in the mid-1980s. During this time, the double numbering with US 19 between Dawson and Albany has also been widened to 2×2 lanes. The doubling went very quickly from the mid-1980s and by 1990 almost the entire route between Tifton and Brunswick had been widened to 2×2 lanes. In the mid-1980s, the Waycross bypass was also constructed, so that US 82 a bit on theUS 1 piggyback.

Traffic intensities

The 2×1 lane section is very quiet with between 2,000 and 6,000 vehicles per day. The rest of the 2×2 lane route is busier, with mostly 10,000 to 15,000 vehicles per day, up to 20,000 in towns.