Monroe officials give traffic update on Hwy 78/11 intersection improvements and movement on ‘northern arc’ bypass

Researching the history of the long-awaited bypass around downtown Monroe would take you back at least a couple of decades. However, the project finally became a reality when the “southern arc” officially opened on Oct. 31, 2025.

At last week’s Monroe City Council meeting, Mayor John Howard said there appears to be movement within the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) on the long-discussed “northern arc.”

“They’ve been a very good partner to Monroe recently,” Howard said, adding that, in addition to improvements at the Highway 11-Highway 78 intersection, GDOT is also moving forward with a “northern arc” bypass of the city to connect with the recently completed “southern arc,” which keeps tractor-trailer traffic out of downtown Monroe except for local deliveries.

The next major traffic issue to tackle in Monroe is the bottleneck at the intersection of Georgia Highways 11 and 78.

Monroe City Administrator Logan Propes told the council during its June meeting that the city is continuing to work toward installing a traffic signal at the intersection. He reported that the city had completed additional traffic analysis, including drone imaging, to support the project.

At the July meeting, Propes said plans for upgrading the intersection have been approved by a regional GDOT office and are awaiting final approval from the agency’s Atlanta headquarters.

“They believe that will happen in about three weeks,” Propes said. “Hopefully, we can really start moving the ball forward there.”

Howard has said that funding already is available for the project, engineering work has been done previously, and the city now is simply waiting for GDOT to move forward with work on the intersection of the two state routes.

Jim Thompson, the Walton Tribune, contributed to this story