A highway ramp at Akers Mill Road in Cobb County, Georgia, may cost more than five times the original estimate.

A ramp near the new Atlanta Braves stadium would provide direct access to reversible toll lanes being built along Interstate 75. The toll lanes would go southbound in the mornings and northbound in the afternoon.

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“If you’re in the center of Cumberland, let’s say you’re at the Galleria or the Performing Arts Center and you want to come to work in the morning or if you want to go home in the afternoon using the managed lane on I-75, you would have to drive two miles north on surface street,” said Cumberland Community Improvement District Board Chairman Tad Leithead.

Leithead said the ramp would provide safer, direct access to the Georgia Department of Transportation’s construction of 29.7 miles of reversible toll lanes I-75 from Akers Mill Road to Hickory Grove Road and along I-575 from I-75 to Sixes Road.

Funding

In 2014, his group asked the Georgia Department of Transportation if it would add the project to its plans if the Cumberland Community Improvement District came up with the money. The Georgia Department of Transportation said yes.

However, the projected cost keeps rising. In 2014, building a ramp was estimated to cost $9 million. In 2015, the revised estimate was $23 million.

But last week, Leithead learned from there is not enough room to get under I-285.

Fixing that brings the total estimate to $51 million.

Leithead said he was alarmed by the new estimate and is optimistic the true cost of the project will go down.

“That seems like an extraordinary amount of money for the project we’re proposing to build,” Leithead said.

The Cumberland Community Improvement District has raised a total of $15.7 million so far. Leithead said he hopes public groups will help come up with the money for the I-285 project, and he’ll likely be shopping for another contractor to build the Akers Mill ramp.

The state’s reversible toll lanes project is expected to be complete by 2018. Leithead expects the ramp could be complete in 2019 if he’s able to secure the funding.

The Georgia Department of Transportation said it continues to be supportive of the Cumberland Community Improvement District’s proposal to add a toll lane, or express lane, exit at Akers Mill Road.

“This proposed express lane interchange is very complex,” said Georgia Department of Transportation Commissioner Russell R. McMurry, P.E. in a statement. “The location of the exit would involve additional widening of I-75 and replacing an existing bridge over I-75. The Georgia Department of Transportation will continue to work with Cumberland Community Improvement District on the next steps and looks forward to opening the express lanes to provide mobility improvements.”