VALDOSTA, Ga. – The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) is proposing two options that would provide an alternative route for trucks to bypass the downtown area.

The City of Valdosta has been searching for ways to accomplish getting trucks out of the downtown area for year but because the corridor is federally-designed as a truck route, local municipalities cannot impose regulations on truck traffic, WCTV reported.

Options could move the designated route by shifting Central and Hill avenues so that they would be under local jurisdictions.

Hill Avenue and Central Avenue are main routes for all vehicles to navigate through downtown Valdosta and the GDOT estimates that more that 1,200 semi-trucks takes these routes daily.

The first route is to extend St. Augustine railroad overpass which would then route traffic all the way around the industrial area south of downtown. This proposed project would cost around $55 million.

The second proposed option would be to build an overpass over I-75 west of downtown and meet back with Highway 84 near Inner Perimeter, WCTV continued.

These two project options are moving onto the Valdosta-Lowndes Metropolitan Planning Organization to determine more about funding and engineering.