Each day, cars trudge along State Route 369 in the congested traffic caused by larger trucks and slower vehicles. One of the drivers takes the risk of rescheduling their appointment, and he will have to reschedule. Not because of the traffic but because he might just rear-end the poor car in front of him. Traffic leads to frustration; frustration leads to reckless driving; reckless driving leads to accidents. To eliminate the environmental, social, and financial problems associated with the dense traffic in prime hours on SR 369, Forsyth County should look into expanding parts of the road from I-19 to SR 20.

Fender-benders and crashes happen every single day, but what if we could prevent those handfuls on the technically- rural SR 369 from happening all together? According to the CDC, Georgia has the 4^th highest medical and work-loss cost from traffic incident deaths costing around $1.55 billion dollars annually. Each person in a fatal crash negatively affects the community, state, and country in the long run. Out of all the fatal crashes, rural roads account for 60% of them. Along with medical and death costs, there are many other prices to be paid. Each accident affects handfuls of people: EMTs, Police Officers, Paramedics, Insurance Companies, Tax Payers, Tow Trucks, Mechanics, Clerk of Courts, Solicitor General, Lawyers, Judges, Various Court Secretaries, passing traffic, and families of affected the vehicles. Preventing accidents on 369 by expanding the road will save the county, state, and tax payer’s money in the long run.

Solving congestion problems can be time-consuming and expensive. Sometimes the solution is not worth the expense as The Nation Center for Policy Analysis points out for widening roads, “This is especially expensive because if peak use lasts only a few minutes a day the new lanes will effectively be unused the rest of the day,” emphasizing that the expansion of the entire SR 369 is unnecessary. Instead, the county should focus on its problem areas: where SR 369 meets I-19. In both the East and West directions, traffic is constant and the merge when heading West on SR 369 coming off of I-19 creates pressure on drivers to speed past the car next to them.  Each mile of widening 369 from a two-lane road to a four-lane road would cost around $2,165,664.54 according to Florida’s released Generic Cost per Mile. If SR 369 was expanded for 3 miles in both East and West from the intersection of I-19, drivers would have less pressure to merge and would allow for a more efficient traffic flow. Although this would cost around $13 million, the endeavor of making roads safer and less congested is worth the cost, especially when compared to the $1.55 billion thrown out by Georgia’s unsafe driving yearly.