The Oconee County Board of Commissioners has put on its agenda for its meeting next Tuesday (May 5) discussion of the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) plans for a truck bypass linking SR 15 and U.S. 441 south of Watkinsville.
The Board took this action at its Agenda Setting meeting on Tuesday (April 28) after citizens appeared before the Board asking it to oppose the current plans, which include three alternate routes for the bypass, none of which follows existing roadways and all of which would cut through undeveloped properties and farmland.
Commissioner Chuck Horton, who asked that the item be put on the agenda, and Commissioner Amrey Harden spoke critically of the current plans and suggested the Board might pass a resolution informing GDOT of its opposition to some or all three of the proposed routes.
GDOT has listed the three routes as alternatives to the No Build option.
Sam Edgemon, one of the citizens who spoke at the meeting on Tuesday, said, based on his analysis of GDOT Traffic Monitoring Program data, that the bypass would divert only about 1 percent of current traffic moving through downtown Watkinsville.
Edgemon is an expert in statistical modeling and data analysis with the SAS Institute in Cary, N.C. He lives south of Flat Rock Road, near the eastern origin of two of the proposed alternate routes.
GDOT has extended the comment period on the bypass from its original end date of April 27 to May, 11, 2026.
In other action on Monday, the Board gave preliminary approval to a $5.5 million bid from Headley Construction Corporation to add 16 lighted tennis courts at Oconee Veterans Park and received its third quarter financial report showing revenue at just less than 82 percent and spending at 62.6 percent of budgeted amounts.
Citizen Comment
Edgemon was the first to the microphone when Board Chair John Daniell asked for Statements and Remarks from Citizens at the beginning of the meeting.
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| Edgemon 4/28/2026 |
Edgemon said his analysis of GDOT data showed that “The bypass will alleviate 1 percent of the traffic that flows through Watkinsville.”
“So think about it,” he said. “Is 1 percent worth $20 to $30 million? Is 1 percent worth destroying some really beautiful farmland? That's a big deal. That farmland will never come back. It'll never come back.”
“I really think the intersections that bookend our town is a lot of the problem,” he said. “I really hope that there would be some support for improving those intersections before we build a bypass that could do some real damage to our end of Oconee County.”
Dana Sullivan, who followed Edgemon and lives in the same area of the county, said “I am also a scientist. I am an agronomist, a soil scientist by training. I also do a lot of remote sensing and mapping work, so I look at spatial data.”
Sullivan said that the “$30 million invested in a bypass that may not serve the purpose it's meant to serve and risks the fracturing of generational farmland, the very people that built our community.”
GDOT has proposed three alternate routes, with cost estimates from $22 to $30 million.
Amanda McCoy Ledford spoke next and said “I believe that farms are an important part of our heritage...I want you guys to know how passionate I am about keeping agriculture a big part of south Oconee County.
Lori Breedlove, the final speaker, said “I think it's safe to say that the data speaks for itself, that I can't see how it's worth destroying these farmlands, destroying our homes, pushing farmers out of our community to reduce traffic by maybe 1 percent.”
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| Breedlove Before Full Board 4/28/2026 |
“This is not the right solution,” she continued. “There's so much at risk here, so much more than our individual homes and our farmland. Our community, and our quality of life is at risk.”
“I know that if my husband William was still here today,” she said. “He would be standing here instead of me. He would be so mad. I'm sure you all know. He would be doing everything in his power to stop this.”
“Will could not have been more proud to be born and raised in Oconee County,” she said of her late husband, Will Powers Breedlove, who died tragically in 2023 as a victim of gun violence. “Now it's my duty to stand here before you in his stead,” she said.
“I request that you stand with us and say no,” she said. “At this point in Oconee's history, a bypass traversing the south end of the county is not warranted.”
Response From Horton
“I think these folks have some strong data points,” Commissioner Horton said when Breedlove had finished. “What I would ask is that for our next meeting, that this be placed on the agenda.”
“I do agree with them,” he continued. “I think there needs to be a vote by the Commission.”
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| Thomas, Horton, Daniell 4/28/2026 |
“It may be Watkinsville wants a bypass,” Horton said. “I've never been a party to any of their meetings or listened to them, nor have I seen any kind of data from GDOT, but we're going to deal with that decision one way or another, where it goes.”
“I see no merit for it going into the south, what I've seen–the (alternates) number 2 and 3,” he said. Alternate 1 is close to but outside the city limits of Watkinsville.
“It's kind of like taking one for the team, but you're not on the team,” Horton said. “It's like you don't get a bat, you don't get a glove, you just watch everything.”
“So I would ask us to place it on the agenda, and we can have some discussion,” he said, “and if it's to the agreement of five of us, to cast a vote.”
“I don't have any problem putting it on the agenda either,” Commissioner Mark Thomas said. “We can look at some of the options.”
Board Chair Daniell said after the meeting that a bypass connecting SR 15 and U.S. 441 has been discussed in the county in the past, but the current GDOT proposals result from requests from Watkinsville, not the county.
Response From Harden
Harden followed Thomas, and he began with “I want to thank the citizens that came tonight to speak to us. I think it is very important.”
Harden said he thinks the citizens already have had impact, and the extension of the deadline for comment until May 11 is a reflection of that. Comments can be filed online, he noted.
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| Harden 4/28/2026 |
“You are right, Chuck, we are the voice of all the citizens of Oconee County,” Harden said, “but we're also in a quandary here because we have the government inside the city limits of Watkinsville pushing for something that they want the people in south Oconee to solve for them.”
Harden said the county’s “land use map, if you look at it, especially if you look at it in color, you see that the entire south end of the county is either dark green or light green. That's rural areas or agricultural preservation.”
“And I think we need to go on record to remind the Department of Transportation that this is a comp plan that was decided for by the citizens of Oconee County for a number of decades, and it has not changed–that segment of it,” he said.
“And I think it would be appropriate for us to go on record with a resolution, whatever, and point out to the DOT that this is something that the citizens of Oconee County have wanted for years-- to leave this part of the county in ag preservation,” Harden said.
“These are generational farms, but they're also working farms,” he said. “When I went down to visit with Lori and Dana and Brandon, somebody was out there fluffing hay.”
“I think it’s appropriate for us to request the city perhaps do a traffic study for these intersections,” Harden said.
“I think it would be appropriate, Mr. Chairman, that we find some wording in the resolution to convey our feelings to the Georgia Department of Transportation, communicate to our governor, to our representative (Eric Gisler) that's here tonight, and our senator, the DOT Board.”
“But again, I want to thank you all,” he said, “and I would encourage you to come back next Tuesday night.”
Tennis Courts, Financial Report
Lisa Davol. Director of Oconee County Parks and Recreation, reminded the Board on Tuesday night the county had sought bids for expansion of the tennis courts at Oconee Veterans Park in late 2025 and rejected those received because they were over budget by about $2 million.
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| Davol Before Board 4/28/2026 |
The county received three bids in response to a request for proposals issued in February, she said. After review by a committee, she said, she is recommending the bid by Headley Construction Corporation.
Funding will come from the 2021 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST), Davol said.
The Board put the recommendation on its consent agenda for final approval on Tuesday night.
County Finance Director Melissa Braswell told the Board that the county has received $37.7 million in revenue at the end of the third quarter on March 32 against the expected $45.9 million in revenue.
The county has spent $29.7 million, with the budget calling for spending of $47.4 million by the end of the Fiscal Year on June 30.
Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) collections were $3.0 million for the quarter, while SPLOST revenue was $3.4 million, and Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (TSPLOST) revenue was $3.2 million.
LOST, SPLOST, and TSPLOST are all 1 percent taxes, but they have different exemptions.
Only SPLOST showed a decline in revenue in March of 2026 compared with that same month a year earlier.
Oconee County Schools reported a drop in Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (ESPLOST) revenue in March as well.
Meeting With Edgemon
I met with Edgemon at his home on Wednesday afternoon to go over his analysis of the GDOT data.
Edgemon said he has been working with SAS for 20 years, where his title is Consultant in the SAS US Business Analytics Consulting Practice. Edgemon said he has worked with many different clients, including the White House in the early stages of the COVID pandemic.
In looking at the potential impact of the SR 15 truck bypass, Edgemon said, he had relied on data he downloaded from the GDOT Traffic Analysis and Data Application (TADA!) website, which presents data collected from the Georgia Traffic Monitoring Program of the public roads in Georgia.
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| Edgemon And Sullivan 4/28/2026 |
According to GDOT, the website “uses a dynamic mapping interface to allow the user to access data from the map as well as in a variety of report, graph, and data export formats.”
Those data show that the total number of vehicles traveling along SR 15 (Main Street) through Watkinsville per day over a one year period is 15,000, Edgemon said, with only 360 of those vehicles being multi-unit trucks, such as tractor trailers or semi trucks. That is 2.4 percent.
GDOT, in materials distributed at the Public Information Open House on April 16, had estimated “Approximately 19,000 vehicles per day, 9 percent of which are trucks, pass through downtown.”
Edgemon said a lot of the trucks start and end in downtown Watkinsville, and he made the “assumption” that 80 percent of the trucks were through traffic, or 288 trucks per days “I think that is pretty generous,” he said.
“If everyone of those trucks took a bypass,” he said, “then you would lose 1.9 percent of your traffic.”
“Not all of the trucks are going to adopt that bypass,” he said.
He picked a figure of 50 percent, or 144, to get the 1 percent reduction.
“It is 1 percent plus or minus something,” he said. If 30 percent of the trucks use the bypass, the reduction would be 0.6 percent. If 70 percent use the bypass, it would be 1.3 percent.
Edgemon said he has found in his work that people often misunderstand the problem they are confronting.
“They think it’s a truck problem,” Edgemon said of the proponents of the bypass. “But Watkinsville has a car problem. There are a whole lot of cars in town. And those cars line up a certain times of the day. Trucks aren’t going to affect it that much.”
He said that Watkinsville should focus on improving its intersections, particularly of Barnett Shoals Road, Greensboro Highway (SR 15), and South Main Street and of North Main Street and Experiment Station Road.
It also should coordinate traffic signals through town, he said.
Video
I recorded the video below, which is on my Vimeo channel.
Edgemon began his comments at 1:18 in the video and was followed by Sullivan, McCoy Ledford, and Breedlove.
Horton began his comments at 12:59 in the video.
Harden began speaking at 18:42 in the video.
3 comments:
As a part of this community for over 40 years, I trust that the commissioners will listen to our citizens about the traffic issues in Oconee County. I personally don't want a bypass to endanger our agricultural land for the sake of improving traffic problems. The roads don't appear to be keeping up with all the construction and growth in this community, which I feel some of the growth is unnecessary.
Watkinsville shouldn’t have any say about what’s proposed to be built in the county. If understand it correctly none of the options go through the city.
I would also like to see the same passion about preserving the north end. I’m pretty sure the largest farming land is in the north of the county, but the subdivisions only come north.
I want all the farmland whether north or south to be preserved. Unfortunately, that went out the door a long time ago. The large tracts will continue to be zoned for residential, or sold to fat cat Atlanta developers.
My family has been here for a very long time. I’m 8th generation. I remember going to Bells as a small boy and it took my mom 2 hrs to shop, because she knew everybody. No matter where I go to eat or shop in Oconee County, I never see one person I know. Truly sad.
Yea!!!! More tennis courts, and lighted….neat. Hopefully someday the county will realize that they could build an Olympic sized swimming pool, charge a membership fee and be able to maintain a top notch swimming facility for the citizens of Oconee County. In the meantime I will continue to drive to Morgan County where they understand the concept!
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