SPRING 2003

PUBLIC SERVICE & OUTREACH

441 CORRIDOR PROJECT
by Jane Link

A new brochure, designed by School of Environmental Design (SED) faculty member Henry Parker, assisted by MLA student Will Pickens and BLA students Adam Mills and Jennifer Proudfoot, will soon join the dozens of others vying for travelers' attention at Georgia's welcome centers. It will promote things to see and do along Georgia's portion of U.S. Highway 441.

The brochure is one of the tangible results of a growing effort to promote tourism along the highway, which runs the length of the state from the Northeast Georgia mountains in Rabun County to south Georgia's Echols County, passing through towns such as Tallulah Falls, Commerce, Athens, Madison, Milledgeville and Fargo along the way.

There's more coming up, hope members of U.S. 441 Heritage Highway Inc., a group formed to promote tourism on the highway. Those hopes include a Web site, new special highway markers, ''heritage centers'' in towns on the route, perhaps even protections for the highway's rural character. The group, which includes tourism and government officials from 19 counties along 441, held its quarterly meeting December 3 in the Founders Memorial Garden House.

There's great potential to market 441 as a more pleasant alternative to Georgia's busy north-south interstates, but that potential could be threatened by highway sprawl already evident along some parts of the road, according to Brian LaHaie, a School of Environmental Design professor of landscape architecture helping the group develop a plan to market the corridor.

LaHaie and other staffers in UGA's College of the Environment and Design showed off the results of work from the plan, financed by a $169,200 federal grant.
Besides a lengthy blueprint for developing the corridor's tourism potential, their presentations included the proposed brochure, designs for new highway signs, a model for a Web site and even a marketing theme -- ''a slice of Georgia.''

But the great tourism potential of the road could be threatened by the wrong kind of development, LaHaie said.

''The greatest risk is the loss of rural character. Frankly, I think that is why some people take this road. The preservation of your history is crucial,'' LaHaie said. ''441 will only be as strong as its weakest link. When people don't think they're getting that tourist experience, that is when they're going to leave that road.''

The road carries travelers near some of the state's most important natural, cultural and historic sites, including the Okefenokee Swamp, the historic homes of Madison and even the Uncle Remus museum in Eatonton. Most of 441 is now four lanes wide through Georgia, and the rest will be soon, said Joy Walstrum of Rabun County, the group's president.

The group, which includes government and tourism officials from Athens-Clarke and other counties on the route, had immediate needs to talk about this week in Athens, however.

Almost all of the $169,200 in federal grant money is gone, Walstrum said, and the group must now come up with more money to keep going.

The group voted to spend $4,000 to hire a UGA student as a part-time worker during spring semester, and up to $7,000 to print 50,000 brochures.

But more money will be needed for some of the next steps the group plans, such as hiring full-time staff members, maintaining a Web site and sending out expensive ''media kits'' to entice travel writers to feature U.S. 441 in articles and TV programs.

Each of the 19 counties has been asked to chip in $1,000 annually to keep the organization going, but some of the counties can't afford even that much, Walstrum said. The group plans a major fund-raiser next fall, and hopes to raise more money from businesses along the route, perhaps through sponsorships on its Web site.

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