A proposed truck bypass around Watkinsville, a town of just under 3,000 people south of Athens, Georgia, has set the state's Department of Transportation against farm families whose land lies along the four routes under study.

The department (GDOT) identified the need for the bypass in spring 2026 to link State Route 24 and State Route 15 without sending trucks through downtown. The project is at concept stage, and GDOT has recommended Alternative 1, which it has priced at about $22 million. If no major changes are made, it would move to right-of-way acquisition and final design.

Tonya Bell, whose farm lies on the recommended route, told a town hall that the road would cut through the middle of land her family has worked for about 75 years, dividing the farm, destroying pastures and draining its lakes. Lori Breedlove, who manages a fifth-generation cattle farm, wrote in a petition that routes 2 and 3 run through or along the pasture next to her home; her land is under a federal conservation easement with the Athens Land Trust, but many neighbours' farms are not.

Residents question whether a town of Watkinsville's size needs a truck bypass at all and accuse officials of a lack of transparency about traffic data and cost assumptions. "Before millions of taxpayer dollars are spent and families of farms are permanently impacted," GDOT should show the origin-and-destination data behind the numbers, said Ashley Bell Bressler.

GDOT's project goals include mobility, connectivity and minimising impacts on property and sensitive areas. It has acknowledged "family farmland impacts" and "conservation easement impacts" as concerns, but warns that without the bypass downtown congestion would worsen. None of the four alternatives it evaluated came from public stakeholders. GDOT did not respond to requests for comment.

The dispute reflects a national trend: according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, US cropland, rangeland and pasture shrank by a combined 77.7 million acres between 1982 and 2022, while developed land grew by 47.6 million acres.

Photo: USDA / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

Source: AGDAILY