more effective design. In 2009, work on the new interchange was completed and has a full diamond interchange with one trumpet to I-575 south from SR 20 west and to Main Street from I-575 north. This is effective because it eliminates the use of traffic signals for two left-turning lanes thereby reducing traffic buildup on the two-lane road in front of Canton Place. Future Widening The southern part of I-575 was slated to be widened to a total of six through lanes in the next few years, as part of the Northwest Corridor Express Lanes plan from the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA). The extra lane in each direction would extend up to Sixes Road and was planned to be an HOV/HOT lane, with special exits at smaller roads that currently do not have any direct access. The GRTA proposes bus rapid transit along the route. There would also be separate new HOV ramps built to southbound and from northbound I-75. That highway was proposed to have eight lanes added to it, with one pair going straight to I-575. All widening on I-575 would be done in the median. In 2009, the plan was scaled-back to include two reversible lanes on I-75, with one extending up I-575. Ridgewalk Parkway/Rope Mill Road A new exit (designated exit 9) was approved in October 2005 by GDOT at Ridgewalk Parkway (formerly Rope Mill Road), between Towne Lake Parkway and Sixes Road. Projected to cost $22 million, the new exit will consist of a full diamond interchange and a widened overpass, to benefit the Ridgewalk commercial development on private land adjacent to the new exit. In addition, the project is part of a greater plan to create a northern bypass of Woodstock, connecting north of downtown to Arnold Mill Road, in theory helping to relieve some of the congestion in the traffic-prone downtown area. The current east–west connection through downtown is restricted to two lanes since recent development was allowed that blocked one-way Mill Street from being extended eastward (which would have allowed Arnold Mill Road/Towne Lake Parkway to carry only westbound traffic through downtown). During construction of this section of I-575 in the early 1980s, the current overpass was constructed to provide access to private property and the now-defunct Little River Wildlife Management Area, which was later abandoned by the state. The bridge was also a connection to a severed alignment of new