US 19 in Georgia

According to foodezine, US 19 is a US Highway in the US state of Georgia. The road runs north-south through the center of the state, from Thomasville on the Florida border, to Ivy Log, on the Tennessee border. In the meantime, the city of Albany and the metropolis of Atlanta are visited. North of Atlanta, US 19 is a major highway with a length of 50 kilometers. The total route is 516 kilometers long.

Travel directions

Southern Georgia

US 19/US 82 around Albany.

Just south of Thomasville, US 19 enters the state from Florida, and the road is multi-lane. US 19 is a major inland transit route in the state of Georgia. In Thomasville one crosses US 84, which runs from Dothan in Alabama to Valdosta on I-75. It also crosses US 319, which runs from Tallahassee, the capital of Florida, to Tifton on I-75 in the northeast. This area in southern Georgia is a mix of forests and meadows. There are not many height differences. US 19 is practically a highway with 2×2 lanes and emergency lanes, only minor connections are at ground level. At Albany the road is even a freeway. Albany is a regional city with 77,000 inhabitants. Here one crosses US 82, which runs from Georgetown to Brunswick on the coast. North of Albany the road narrows temporarily to a single-lane main road, but from Americus the road is again multi-lane. Here one crosses US 280, which runs from Richland to Cordele on I-75.

The area is gradually becoming denser and more hilly. Just north of Butler, you cross US 80, which runs from Columbus to Macon, both major cities in the state. Around Griffin the road is again a highway for a while, and the US 19 runs together with the US 41, until Atlanta.

Atlanta

In Atlanta, US 19 is part of the urban highway network. In north Atlanta, State Route 400 becomes US 19 at the interchange with Interstate 285, Atlanta ‘s ring road. This section is called the Turner McDonald Parkway and has 2×4 lanes. It passes through the suburb of Sandy Springs, and through many other smaller suburbs north of Atlanta. This area is also densely forested, as is the entire Atlanta metropolitan area. Another large suburb is Roswell, with a population of 98,000. US 19 opens up quite a large suburban area, and is therefore quite busy. After Alpharetta the road narrows to 2×3 lanes. The last suburb is Cumming, located 60 kilometers from downtown Atlanta. The highway then turns into a regular multi-lane main road.

Northern Georgia

The area north of Atlanta is becoming increasingly hilly, these are the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. There is a large reservoir in this area. The area is also becoming increasingly densely forested. The road also rises slowly. The road is scenically very beautiful, and runs at an altitude of 700 meters. This area is totally deserted, with no villages or other roads. The road even has hairpin bends. You pass the highest point in Georgia, Brasstown Bald, with an altitude of 1458 meters. The hamlet of Ivy Log crosses the border into North Carolina.

History

According to bittranslators, US 19 was created in 1926, its southern terminus at the time was Lawrenceville, just east of Atlanta. In 1928 the terminus was changed to Thomasville in southern Georgia, and in 1929 the route was extended further to Tallahassee, Florida, forming the current route in Georgia.

US 19 is of significant urban importance, particularly in the Atlanta area, and is a major access highway to the southern and northern suburbs. A fairly large portion of US 19 is also four-lane, particularly between Albany and Atlanta and further south from the Florida border to Albany. In Albany, the bypass, over which US 82 also runs, is a short freeway. In the northern suburbs of Atlanta, US 19 has also been expanded as a freeway.

Southern Georgia

The eastern rerouting of Thomasville was realized in the early 1960s, directly with 2×2 lanes. An eastern diversion of Albany was also realized at that time, which at that time was still numbered as a state route, because US 19 still followed the old route into the city. Shortly thereafter, US 19 was routed over the bypass. In the mid-1960s, a diversion outside the center of Camilla was also realized as a 2×2 divided highway. The Albany freeway bypass was inaugurated around 1976. This was primarily a bypass for east-west traffic on US 82, but traffic on US 19 also uses it.

In the 1980s, US 19 between the Florida and Albany border was fully widened to 2×2 lanes, largely along a new route east of the old US 19. By the mid 1980s, the northern half of this was completed and In the 1980s, the entire route between Thomasville and Albany was equipped with 2×2 lanes. In the late 1990s, the southernmost section between the Florida and Thomasville border was widened to 2×2 lanes.

Central Georgia

Most of US 19 between Albany and the Atlanta area was widened to 2×2 lanes quite late. Only the section between Griffin and Atlanta has been widened to a 2×2 divided highway a long time ago, which was the primary approach road to Atlanta from the south before I-75 was built. This section was already widened to 2×2 lanes in the 1950s. The Griffin bypass was constructed in the late 1960s, partly on a freeway profile.

It was not until the second half of the 1980s that the rest of the 200-kilometer stretch of US 19 between Albany and Griffin began to be widened to 2×2 lanes. This was largely supported by the Governor’s Road Improvement Programexecuted. First, Albany’s northern approach road was widened to 2×2 lanes in the late 1980s. In the early 1990s, the section between Thomaston and Griffin was widened to 4 lanes, mostly on a somewhat narrow profile. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the section between Butler and Thomaston was widened to 2×2 lanes. A bypass of Leesburg was also realized around 1999, around 2008 the section between Leesburg and Smithville was widened to 2×2 lanes, including a diversion of Smithville. Around 2009 the route from Smithville to Americus was widened to 2×2 lanes. In the period 2007-2009, a doubling was also carried out on a large scale between Americus and Butler. This completed the doubling of US 19 in central Georgia.

Atlanta

The Atlanta highway was built in the 1970s to accommodate the rapidly growing northern suburbs, especially Sandy Springs, Roswell, and Alpharetta. On May 24, 1971, the first section from I-285 to Alpharetta was opened. In 1972 the Alpharetta bypass opened to traffic, and in 1976 an extension to the south side of Cumming opened to traffic. The extension to Coal Mountain was completed in 1977.

Since then, the highway has been widened to 2×4 lanes in 1989, only the original 2×2 lanes remain to the north of Alpharetta. Here is a space reservation for more lanes should the need arise. The main bottleneck is the substandard interchange with I-285 in Sandy Springs.

Northern Georgia

In Northern Georgia US 19 originally ran from Cumming to Dahlonega via Dawsonville, later a new 2×2 route was constructed further east, via a shorter route. This diversion was completed in the early 1980s and was an extension of the freeway from Atlanta. The old route is now numbered as State Route 9.

Furthermore, no major upgrades have been made in the Appalachian Mountains of northern Georgia. The US 19 runs over the approximately 950 meter high Neels Gap, this is a winding single-lane road.