Outer Perimeter

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Outer Perimeter
Northern Arc
Length:	approximately 55.0 miles
Formed:	Cancelled
Direction:	East/West
From:	near Cartersville, Georgia
Major junctions:	near Canton, Georgia near Cumming, Georgia in Buford, Georgia
To:	in Buford, Georgia
Major cities:	Atlanta
System:	Interstate Highway System

The Outer Perimeter was an expressway originally planned to encircle Atlanta about 20-to-25 miles further away from the city than the existing Perimeter Highway (I-285). The original plan of the highway would have roughly gone through or near the communities of Cartersville, Canton, Cumming, Buford, Dacula, Loganville, Conyers, McDonough, Hampton, Peachtree City, Villa Rica, and Dallas. The roadway would have roughly paralleled state route 20, which goes around three sides of Atlanta.

A later incarnation of the highway only encompassed what was termed the Northern Arc and included the portion of the original planned highway from Interstate 75 near Cartersville across to Interstate 85 near the Mall of Georgia in Buford. One proposal tied to this version would have reportedly limited exits to five major highway interchanges, at the freeways that crossed it: I-75, I-575, Georgia 400, I-985 and I-85.

The Northern Arc would have been a toll road under another proposal, which advocates say would have kept most local traffic away from the highway, while freeing it for trucks. Opponents said that despite the toll, the road would have encouraged additional development and congestion, creating the continued urban sprawl that, at times, threatens to overwhelm areas much closer to Atlanta-proper.

The highway would have been designated Interstate 485 and would have carried the hidden designation of state route 500, though GDOT denies any Interstate highway number was ever considered. Advocates of the highway touted its use by long-distance truck drivers to have them completely avoid the congestion of the highways much closer to Atlanta. The original Perimeter, I-285, while planned as a bypass of the city has, in effect, become one of the main freeway routes for both local traffic and traffic passing through the Atlanta area.

Budgetary constraints, political pressure, and public opposition supposedly killed plans for both incarnations of the road. However, the Northern Arc resurfaced in February 2007, with suggestions that it be placed further north, out of the current path of exurban land development.

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