Oconee County Commissioners Say They Are Opposed To Proposed Truck Bypass Route Of Watkinsville That GDOT Consultants Favor

***Large Crowd Turns Out For Called Town Hall Meeting***

All five of Oconee County’s commissioners on Tuesday night said they were opposed to the close-in route for a truck bypass linking SR 15 with U.S. 441 south of Watkinsville that consultants for the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) said they are considering as the recommended route.

The commissioners were joined in that opposition by Georgia House District 121 Rep. Eric Gisler and Georgia Senate District 46 candidate Ray Smith, both of whom were in the audience of more than 80 at the called Board of Commissioners Town Hall Meeting.

Two of the commissioners, Amrey Harden and Chuck Horton, made it clear they are opposed to any bypass route that crosses through farmland south of the city limits, as all three of those proposed by GDOT do.

Much of the meeting focused on the data that consultants NV5, a national engineering firm, used at its virtual meeting with the commissioners, Watkinsville Council members, and Gisler on Aug. 20.

Sam Edgemon, an analyst who said he has experience working with transportation data, called the numbers used by NV5 “questionable.”

He also said he own analysis of different data gathered by GDOT shows the volume of traffic along Main Street has not increased greatly over the last 11 years.

Watkinsville Mayor Brian Brodrick said near the end of the meeting that he was trying to solve a problem that affects residents in the south of the county as well as residents of Watkinsville when he proposed the bypass and that he understands that his initiative had “created issues for you all, and I don't like that.”

He said he was committed to working with the county to improve the intersections in the city as one way to address the problem.

Summary Of Project

Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell began the meeting on Monday with a project history and update.

“A State Route 15 Bypass is not a new concept,” he said. “The idea has been discussed at different times over the last three decades.”

Daniell 9/15/2026

Daniell said in July of 2021, Watkinsville had a strategic planning meeting “where the bypass was named as a priority for the city.”

In September of 2021, GDOT approved a scoping study of the bypass, and in April of 2023, “preliminary documents from that study were released,” Daniell said.

The study identified two potential routes, from Flat Rock Road to U.S. 441 and from Green Ferry Road to U.S. 441, Daniell said.

In June of 2023, at a stakeholders meeting, Daniell said, the routes were reviewed and “There was also a discussion on a route closer or inside the city limits. There was also a discussion on the negative impacts of both alternatives.”

Daniell said, as he understands it, “GDOT reviewed the results with the governor's office and, because of the project's high impact, they received funding” in the July 2024 budget amendments of $3.5 million for engineering and $12 million for right of way.

Answers To Questions

In March of 2025 field surveys began,” Daniell said, and on April 3 of this year GDOT released documents identifying the three alternate routes under consideration at present.

Thomas 9/15/2026

“On April 15th, Watkinsville released a letter supporting Option Number 2,” Daniell said, “ and on the 16th, we held a Public Information Open House here with a very strong turnout. (Mayor Brodrick said at the Aug. 20 meeting that the city no longer favored a route.)

“I will note there were no preferred routes on any of the documents,” Daniell said, “which is the first time in my involvement as a commissioner on a DOT project where at that Information Open House, they did not have a preferred route.”

Following the Aug. 20 stakeholders meeting, Daniell said, “We've received several questions from folks, and “I met with the planning consultant and GDOT on Monday over the phone to try to get some answers to some of those questions.”

Daniell said he learned that the traffic counts used for the most recent study “came from recent counts performed by the consultant. The traffic counts noted on the GDOT websites are not necessarily the same locations” as those most recent counts.

“Detailed data is not available at this time,” he said he was told, “but data will be available in the future.”

The NV5 analysis is based on the county and city agreeing to take over responsibility for maintenance of what is now SR 15 passing through the city, Daniell said, and the county will be able to assume responsibility for its portion of the road if voters approve renewal of the Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (TSPLOST) on the November Ballot.

Daniell said a route through the former cement pipe plant was considered but rejected. “The consultant has not received any directions or orders to keep the bypass outside the city limits,” he added.

First Speaker

Edgemon was the first to come to the podium when Daniell had finished his introduction on Tuesday and opened the floor for comment.

Edgemon 9/15/2026

Edgemon, who does statistical modeling and data analysis for the SAS Institute in Cary, N.C., told the Board that “I've worked with DOTs. I spent a long project with the Louisiana Department of Transportation, helping them optimize how much money they're spending across the state. So that's not a new thing for me.”

Edgemon lives south of Flat Rock Road, near the eastern origin of two of the proposed alternate routes for the bypass.

Edgemon turned first to data presented at the Aug. 20 stakeholders meeting, when Rick Strickland, executive vice president for NV5, said that each of the three alternatives routes would reduce “truck traffic and congestion through downtown.”

Strickland said that the Average Annual Daily Traffic (AADT) count would be 14,900 in 2050 if no bypass were built, would be 1,800 with Alternative 1, would be 2,000 with Alternative 2, and would be 2,000 with Alternative 3. A fourth route, considered in less detail, would have an AADT of 6,800.

Edgemon said he and others assumed “they're talking about traffic on Main Street...downtown Watkinsville. But they're not.” (He singled out my post on Aug. 23 as being in error because of that assumption.)

Edgemon said Rep. Gisler had contacted GDOT and its consultants and learned that “we're hearing about traffic out around the Core Blend business area, not Main Street. That's a big deal.”

Core Blend Training is at 1260 Greensboro Highway (SR 15), a half mile south of the SR 15 intersection with Main Street.

Edgemon said it also isn’t clear if the data are birectional, reflecting traffic into and out of Watkinsville at that site.

Separate Analysis, Conclusions

Edgemon said he was able to obtain historical data from a GDOT website for 2015 to 2025 that includes Main Street traffic counts.

Horton 9/15/2026

Those data show an average AADT of 16,191 across those 11 years, he reported, starting with 14,800 in 2015 and ending with 15,100 in 2025, or an increase of 300 vehicles per day. The count peaked at 17,700 in 2019 and then declined.

“This analysis does not justify a bypass,” Edgemon said, “and that's an evidence-based assessment.”

Edgemon said he also looked at crash data, and 45 percent of the crashes statewide are related to intersections, and in Watkinsville, 62 percent of the crashes are related to intersections.

“These intersections need attention,” he said.

“There have been two people involved in pedestrian crashes in the last four years,” he said. “And neither was on Main Street.”

“The NV5 presentation was at the wrong location,” he said in conclusion. “They didn't talk about directions. They didn't talk about destination.”

“Before committing millions of public dollars, the assumptions, the numbers, and expected benefits should be clearly explained with evidence,” he said.

“I ask you guys to please consider commissioning an independent study to evaluate the need for this project and if alternatives are available,” he said.

Edgemon was at the podium for more than 30 minutes.

Gisler Comments

About half way through the nearly two-hour meeting, Commissioner Horton asked Rep. Gisler if he thought it would be possible to get people at GDOT to meet with Edgemon “and get some data, if they have it.”

Gisler 9/15/2026

Gisler told Horton that he had reached out to Strickland at NV5 after the Aug. 20 meeting with a question from Lori Breedlove, whose farm will be affected by both Alternative 2 and Alternative 3, about the 14,900 AADT traffic estimate.

Gisler said he asked “about that 15,000 number for downtown Watkinsville, because that's how I understood it, that's how she understood it, and that's how Lee understood it. I think that's how we all understood it.”

“And he told me then that number was actually the projections for the McRee Street route” for a bypass within the city limits of Watkinsville, Gisler said.

“In that conversation, I did tell him that there are a lot of very good questions that we're getting about this, and we don't have very good answers for them,” Gisler said.

“We have numbers. We don't know where the numbers came from, and the numbers don't really seem believable,” he said. “So my advice to them was that if they're trying to get to alignment on this project, they need to be transparent with the data and the analysis they've done.”

“And I asked for that same report,” he said. “I told him it was an official request.”

“The response I got was the same one you got,” Gisler said, nodding to Daniell. "They’ll make it available, and he didn’t give me a timeline on that.”

Horton asked Gisler to get Edgemon and the people at GDOT together. Gisler agreed to try to do.

“I know Mayor Brodrick is here,” Gisler said. “We've spoken about this project as well. I think if the numbers don't back up the project and the projections they're putting out there, I would imagine that folks in Watkinsville wouldn't want to see this go through either.”

“While I'm here,” Gisler said, “I'll just take a moment to remind everyone that as far as I know, I don't know if maybe you've heard any different, they've only got approval through the alignment phase and maybe some property acquisition.”

“They will have to come back to the legislature to get the funding to actually build a road,” he said. “So, we do have that to just keep in mind as well.”

Other Comments

“I will be directly impacted by this,” Alan Bell said when Edgemon stepped away from the podium. “I've heard zero factual justification why it's necessary beyond potential Watkinsville city vanity projects.”

“We can't get that farmland back,” Ashley Bell Bressler said. “Once this is done, it is done.”

“God is not making any more dirt, and they are wanting to destroy it,” she said.

Bell Bressler 9/15/2026

“The proposed truck bypass is going to cost taxpayers millions of dollars, but what do we get in return?” Tonya Bell asked. “Watkinsville may have fewer trucks going through downtown, but in exchange, we're losing farmland, lakes, homes, the character of our community.”

“Just a reminder,” Sam Border said. “DOT has no money. None. The money that we entrust for them to spend is our money.”

“I'm here to ask why county families and officials are being forced to spend so much of their time and so many resources fighting a project that the available data, as you've already heard, does not justify,” Jeff Wilkes, reading a statement from Jeff and Candice Wilkes, said.

“This does not run through my farm,” Charles Hillsman said, “but it does affect the Oconee County. I've served on a long-range planning before, and this would go against everything that we've done with that.”

“When you hit downtown Watkinsville, which includes Town Center, you go to the bank, you're all the way to Oconee State Bank, might be, Experiment Station Road,” Albert Hale said. “That's downtown Watkinsville.”

“I don't think bypass is the solution,” Jason Smith said. “I encourage you all to explore, perform that study, and to try to solve this in a manner that works for everybody, not just the city of Watkinsville.”

“I live down the road,” Omar Mushfiq said. “I drive to work every day to Athens. I've never felt like, gosh, there are too many trucks here. All the traffic is people like me who live here. It's cars and SUVs. Every now and then I see a truck.”

“As a physician, I know that it is a bad idea to waste time, effort, and money in solving a problem that doesn't exist,” he said.

Force A Vote

Russ Tanner, whose home on Old Bishop Road will be very close to the route that NV5 is leaning toward, was the eighth speaker, and he ended his comments with with a question directed at the five commissioners and Rep. Gisler.

Tanner 9/15/2026

“As proposed right now, option 1, are you for or against it?” he asked.

“As far as the proposals, all three of them, No. I think we need some more data,” Commissioner Mark Thomas said.

“No, I’m not going to support it,” Horton said. “I think’s just so many questions, period...I want to say this too. I wasn’t a part of any of the previous with anybody, with DOT, about this project.”

“I’m not in favor of what I see,” he said. “Don’t expect me to spend money for roads that the county wasn’t ever a part of...I’m not in favor of any of this stuff. Why would you support a road way out there in the county when you’ve got local people causing the traffic."

“I want to first see a route inside the city limits or closer to the city limits,” Daniell said. “And we’ve got a lot of work to look at to making improvements to the downtown traffic flow.”

“So option 1 as its planned currently?” Tanner asked.

“Not my preferred route,” Daniell said.

“I think there is a lot of studying that needs to be done before a penny is spent,” Harden said. “I’m opposed to taking the south Oconee land.”

“So you’re against this?” Tanner asked.

“Oh yes,” Harden said.

“Absolutely no,” Commissioner Mark Saxon said.

Gisler said he is against the design “as it is right now.”

Gisler asked Tanner to include Smith, who said “I’m opposed to it as it stands...I think we need more data.”

Brodrick

Brodrick waited until near the end to come to the podium, though his name had come up many times during the evening. Only Mushfiq followed him.

Brodrick 9/15/2026

“I won't keep you all long,” he began. “I know it's late already.”

“I want you all to know this started to try and solve a problem,” he said. “We all acknowledge that there's a problem. We certainly didn't anticipate or intend for anyone to be harmed or feel this way by trying to solve a problem that hundreds, if not thousands, of people have been frustrated by.”

“So, I do want you all to know that our citizens are affected—they're also county residents in Watkinsville--tremendously by this traffic,” he said. “But I do want you all to know the origin of this.”

“There's no benefit to the city from this, other than trying to solve a problem that frustrates our merchants and frustrates many people in south Oconee for a long time,” he said.

“What I do want you all to know is we are committed to using a significant amount of our future TSPLOST dollars to work on downtown interchanges and intersections,” Brodrick said.

“We prefer to do that in partnership with the county,” he added. “I think we'll be more effective if we work together.”

“And whether the bypass comes or not, I think it's important that we embark on that journey together,” Brodrick said. “We hope we can work out the terms of partnership that will work, and also reflect the fact that it's not just Watkinsville people coming through."

“So, we look forward to talking further with you, Chairman Daniel, and your team about that,” he said. I hope we can find a way to work to solve these problems in Watkinsville.”

Video

The video below is of entire Town Hall meeting of the Board of Commissioners.

Daniell began his update on the bypass project starting at the very beginning of the video.

Edgemon began speaking at 7:24 in the video.

Gisler went to the podium at 59:00 in the video.

Tanner posed his question at 1:26:31

Brodrick began speaking at 1:46:47.