Cobb County announced in a news release on its website that it will receive $8.45 million in federal funding to enhance roadway safety along several high-risk corridors.
The funding comes from the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) Grant Program and will support the county’s Multi-Corridor Safety Improvements project, part of its Fiscal Year 2025 application. The $8,448,000 implementation grant is aimed at reducing fatal and serious-injury crashes across the county.
The City of Mableton received a grant of $240,000 from the same program.
Targeted roadways for the county’s grant include Olive Springs Road, Pat Mell Road, and Windy Hill Road—areas flagged in Cobb County’s 2023 Comprehensive Safety Action Plan as having a high incidence of severe collisions.
“Cobb residents depend on our roads for daily trips to work, school, and other essential activities. This grant will help make those trips safer,” said Cobb County DOT Director Drew Raessler. “I’m proud to advance this project, which reinforces our commitment to roadway safety.”
Planned improvements include new traffic signals, additional turn lanes, roundabouts, raised medians, and enhanced lighting to bolster pedestrian and bicycle connectivity and overall traffic safety.
Before work can begin, Cobb County and the Federal Highway Administration must finalize and execute a grant agreement. Project implementation will commence following that step.
The SS4A program is a national initiative designed to assist communities in developing and executing safety strategies that prevent roadway fatalities and injuries.
Additional details on the project timeline and scope will be released as the agreement progresses.
They need to really look at South Cobb Drive starting at the intersection of Atlanta Road and South Cobb Drive and ending at the intersection of the East-West Connector and South Cobb Drive! This is as per mile the most dangerous highway in the metro area!
I agree with you that’s a dangerous stretch. I’m not sure what the current figures show, but as of a few years ago accident stats bore that out (with the worst being between Windy Hill and Pat Mell roads. My own opinion is that some of the most insanely dangerous road design is a bit further south of the EW Connector on South Cobb Drive.
It’s all the roads clustered around South Cobb and Highlands Parkway. Before you get to Highlands, coming from the north, several roads converge at angles. That might be unfixable. But when you turn on Highlands the routing of traffics via turn arrows is insane, and it’s insane from all directions. If you do the legal thing and delay turning at the first opportunity at the arrow, the stream of traffic will cut you off from your turn, so everyone who knows the area blows through the arrows, causing near collisions (I live near there and have witnessed hundreds of near misses and crazy illegal turns over the past twenty years). Also when you hit Oakdale Road, a minor road, Oak Drive, intersects with Oakdale far too close to Oakdale & Highland, causing cars to blindly force their way into the cars backed up at the intersection.
So that’s my vote for most dangerous route.