Though the main focus of Georgia Highways are the roads owned and maintained by the Georgia Department of Transportation or former state routes, GDOT responsibilty consists of only a mere 16% of the entire road system. As in most states, the remaining 84% is maintained mostly by the counties and cities with 75% of that consisting of county roads. Other road systems include roads owned by the State Tollway Authority, which are owned by the Authority but maintained by GDOT, other state agencies including colleges, the Jekyll Island Authority, state park roads and various private road networks owned and maintained through homeowner fees or maintenance. Most private roads or road networks are not even listed as state mileage. On the system maintained by the cities and counties, the state does not share any of the responsibility of road maintenance with counties, thus the consistency and quality of the roads varies wildly from county to county. Indeed, local roads range from single-lane mud cowpaths to freeways. As the local road system is too immense, too variable and basically is not definined into any categories, this page attempts to describe the local system in addition to other road systems. Also, historical information on local roads will be discussed if it exists and detailed descriptions (sometimes with photos) of major county routes that are of as great of statewide importance as state highways. In discussing local roads, it is important to note that in the U.S., there are three kinds of local road systems: locally owned and maintained, state-owned local systems (typically referred to as "secondary state roads") and locally owned, state-maintained road systems (more difficult to pinpoint and define). There are also some states that sign and define important county routes as "county trunklines". With these, there is no difference in ownership, only in that a state DOT and county agencies mutually agree to sign important county routes as highways in lieu of no differentiation. This is described here to provide clarity when discussing issues regarding local control and practice. Anyway, no site detailing Georgia Highways would be complete without discussion of the thousands upon thousands of miles of road not under state jurisdiction. This page will attempt to skim the surface of the immense local road network.
Click here to read about the county road system. The other jurisdictions responsible for the roads, as mentioned above include other state agencies and private jurisdictions, but most of all it is the cities. Cities in Georgia have broader powers over roads within their jurisdiction as they are allowed to perform maintenance on state routes and have broader powers regarding with state routes on city streets, especially in regards to trucks and location of state routes. Municipal governments, however, are a department of county government, so they still must rely on a share of county revenues aside from city taxes and fines as a means of income. Municipal goverments are also not permitted to assume full responsibility of state routes and counties have rights to maintain roads within cities until the city takes over responsibility with full annexation. Municipalities also shared the privileges offered in the shared services program discussed on the county roads page. Indeed, several smaller cities participated as well as counties. Some munipalities in Georgia either have already or are currently studying consolidating with their respective counties. This makes a unique situation of a county road system that is also municipal. Such systems currently exist in Columbus-Muscogee County, Athens-Clarke County, Augusta-Richmond County and is currently in the works in Savannah and Chatham County. These generally lead to better roads for both agencies, but an unusual government structure that has often been controversial. Other jurisdictions figure little into the total system in Georgia, but they do exist. Mostly, these are private roads, but several state agencies oversee a small network of roads. This includes all the state colleges and universities, all the roads on Jekyll Island (Jekyll Island Authority), state park roads, state forest roads and most notably the State Tollway Authority. At present, the State Tollway Authority is responsible only for GA 400 since the tolls were removed on the Torras Causeway in December 2003. However, this will soon change as the authority is studying to make GA 316 into a limited-access turnpike. It is believed that the influence of this agency will increase as large-scale road projects are no longer able to be financed by the federal government. Local roads in Georgia are fairly typical, but unique in the fact of the enormous amount of jurisdictions responsible for them with no further agreements to share expenses other than city-county mergers in several major Georgia cities. Georgia is surrounded by extremes in road systems with the most similar state being Tennessee. Alabama and Florida both have very small state road systems where nearly 90% of all roads are under local jurisdictions. Both states also have large counties that make such systems more practical. North Carolina to the north has no county roads, instead opting for NCDOT to not only maintain, but control all the county roads statewide. Many municipal systems in NC are also largely under supervision of NCDOT. SCDOT has county roads, but is responsible for nearly 65% of the entire road system. States such as Pennsylvania and Oregon take a very progressive approach to local roads, allowing towns and counties to give most or all of their maintenance duties to their state DOT's. States like Wisconsin do the opposite, having counties maintain every non-municipal road in the state. While GDOT does not allow any such agreements for sharing services with local governments at this point, many states have tried to create road systems similar to Georgia in size with around 16% of their roads under state control. Tennessee did this in the 1980's and Montana in the 1990's. This was also tried in Michigan, but mostly failed due to local opposition. ©
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