With over 500 state route roads in Georgia, 16 run through Macon. These are Macon’s most dangerous roads. According to Make Roads Safe, Macon-Bibb County has a pedestrian fatality rate of 11.1 fatalities per 100,000 residents, which is five times the national average. In 2021 alone, 17 pedestrians lost their lives on state routes in Macon.
In Georgia, any road can become a state route when they are important to more than just local traffic. These routes usually connect cities or towns, transport a lot of traffic, and often lead to major structures like airports or interstates.
The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) oversees the state’s transportation infrastructure. GDOT officials help determine what roads are considered state routes. First, they determine if the road is useful for the state as a whole. Then, if the road is being managed by a city or county, GDOT, and the local leaders make a jurisdictional transfer agreement, where GDOT would officially take responsibility for the road, meaning they are in charge of maintenance and improvements. Then, the road is given a State Route (SR) number.
Once a road becomes a state route, the road is entirely maintained by GDOT. GDOT is responsible for paving, repairs, and making safety improvements like adding sidewalks and guardrails.
“They are the principal agency in charge of approving, roadway design, building infrastructure,” Macon’s Director of Planning and Public Spaces Alex Morrison explains. He goes on to explain that state roads do not have the decision making power vested in the local government because they are multi-jurisdictional.
Weston Stroud, the city’s Traffic Safety Manager, speaks about the issues that Macon has with state routes in the city and their safety issues.
“We have a lot of different state routes that go through Macon, and with that, whenever you touch a road or the state touches a road, they have to have a curb cut so that ADA accessibility is there,” Stroud explains. “But it doesn’t mandate that they create sidewalks. So there are a lot of different places where there are crosswalks across the street, but there may not be sidewalks there which is a constant issue, especially if you’re walking.”
He explains that there is only so much the city can do to increase the safety of these roads, as they have to go through the state to get things changed. The state is the one that has to create these sidewalks or crosswalks for pedestrians to travel more safely, but this could take a long time for these things to be implemented on the roads. For example, on Gray Highway/ SR 22, the sidewalk ends for pedestrians to walk on, and they eventually have to walk on the side of the road with six lanes of heavy traffic constantly whirring past them.
Some of the most heavy-traffic roads in Macon are state routes. Some common ones are SR 11, locally known as Broadway and Pio Nono Avenue; SR 22, locally known as Gray Highway; and SR 74, locally known as Mercer University Drive and Thomaston Road. These roads also happen to be where many of the pedestrian fatalities and accidents occur.
According to the Georgia Department of Transportation’s Pedestrian Safety Action Plan, which covers 2018 to 2022, around 7% of accidents involving a pedestrian in Macon in recent years wound up with the pedestrian dying. This is compared to 5% statewide. Between 2011 and 2015, four pedestrians died and five were seriously injured on Gray Highway.
Pio Nono Avenue is another road that is considered dangerous in Macon. Over the past six years, this road has experienced five pedestrian deaths alone.
Macon-Bibb County has adopted initiatives like the Vision Zero Action Plan and the Complete Streets policy to prioritize pedestrian safety. These programs aim to promote infrastructures that benefit everyone, including pedestrians and cyclists. The county has also applied for federal grants to fund comprehensive improvements on dangerous roads like Gray Highway. Last year, Macon-Bibb County received $5.6 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation for safety improvements on Gray Highway.
