DOT board approves $822 million bond sale

JEKYLL ISLAND - Governor Barnes&#39; $8.6 billion statewide transportation program got started Thursday when the state Department of Transportation board approved an $822 million bond sale for this summer. <br> <br> The sale of the 20-year bonds, to be repaid with anticipated federal transportation grants, is to be completed in July. State officials plan to start spending the money in August. <br> <br> Part of the money from the bonds will go to repay $300 million in short-term notes issued by the State Road and Tollway Authority in November to jump-start the Governor&#39;s Road Improvement Program. <br> <br> GRIP is a list of new roads around the state designed to spur economic development. <br> <br> Once the cost of issuing the bonds is paid, there will be another $430 million available to build roads, buy buses, and pay for a number of other projects. <br> <br> Roughly 60 percent will go toward helping to ease gridlock in metro Atlanta, and about 37 percent to projects to stimulate development in the rest of the state. <br> <br> The largest portion of the bond money, $176.5 million, is proposed for rail projects -- including a multimodal passenger terminal in downtown Atlanta and a passenger rail line from Macon to Atlanta. <br> <br> Although the Northern Arc, a controversial 59-mile toll road proposed for north metro Atlanta, is part of GRIP, none of the bond money is earmarked for that project.