MOULTRIE — The widening project of Ga. Highway 133 from Valdosta to Moultrie eventually will mean a slow down in traffic from Farmer’s Gin and Peanut Co. all the way to Veterans Parkway.

Stretches that now have posted speed limits of 55 miles per hour will have to be reduced by the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) to 45 miles per hour due to a change in design. The change in design will add a turning lane between four lanes instead of a raised median that would have required more rights-of-way acquisition and more construction cost to taxpayers, Wolverton and Associates, Inc. Project Manager Joe Macrina said Thursday at a Spence Field public hearing on the project.

Construction on the 35-mile leg from Moultrie to Valdosta won’t start for years to come, though. Rights-of-way acquisition from current property owners should be complete by spring 2011, GDOT Spokesman Craig Solomon said.

Rather than building a 20-foot raised median, GDOT will save six feet off rights-of-way requirements by constructing instead a five-lane road from Old Berlin Road through Berlin and into Moultrie to Veterans Parkway. Curb and gutter will begin at Regency Village mobile home park, as well as sidewalks that will tie into sidewalks on the bypass. The portion through Berlin, however, will not have curb and gutter. It will have rural shoulders and grass ditches just like the other rural stretches of the highway as requested by the residents along that area, Macrina said.

“It’s cheaper to do this,” he said, adding that the volume on the roadway would allow this alternative.

Building the highway to fit new standards for four-lane 55 mph traffic would have taken up much more land for clear zones.

“The impacts would have been tremendous,” Macrina said.

Auto dealer Robert Hutson is happy about the added lane. For years, he’s sought a turning lane in front of dealerships on Quitman Highway to improve safety.

“I’m telling you we need a turning lane. I mean, it’s bad out there. What happens to us is that people from out of town, every now and then people think there’s a turning lane there and they’ll get over in the (oncoming) lane. You’ve got to watch them,” Hutson said.

Drivers waiting to turn also have to watch for semi-trucks coming up too fast behind them, he added.

“They’re coming through there 50 miles an hour, and they can’t stop,” he said.

A portion of the leg to Valdosta will be expedited due to safety concerns. Macrina points to clusters of markers on the map representing more than 30 accidents within three years in the area around the offset intersections of Old Adel Road and Fifth Avenue Southeast. The project will realign Old Adel Road and Fifth Avenue Southeast at right angles to the highway.

Construction along that area will be considered as a separate project, Macrina said, and will take a year to design. More than 30 parcels will have to be acquired before construction begins, likely in a year-and-a-half, he said.

The changes in the project proposal took into account input from the public at two previous public information open houses and through the state web site, Solomon said.

As for wetlands affected by the project, more than 41 acres will be affected in Brooks and Colquitt counties. That is a relatively small amount given the scope of the project, said GDOT transportation design consultant Scarlett Neville. There are 57 separate wetlands affected along the route. For instance, less than an acre of the pond at Maule Air will be taken up in the right-of-way. However, a wetland, Neville explained, can be quite small.

GDOT is in the market to purchase nearby properties to create wetlands in an effort to make up for the loss.

“We mitigate for more than we actually take just to make it compensate for it all,” said GDOT Transportation Environmental Planner Alexis John.

Copies of the project information and maps will be houses at the local GDOT office on North Veterans Parkway and online.