Cobb Parkway

Cobb Parkway (locally, often just "41") is a major arterial road which runs northwest and southeast through Cobb County, Georgia. It concurrently carries both U.S. 41, and the much less-recognized Georgia 3. It is also known as North Cobb Parkway and South Cobb Parkway, the dividing point being Roswell Street (west) and Roswell Road (east/northeast), which were Georgia 120 for decades until abandoned by the GDOT in late 2007. This is also the dividing line between north and south for street addresses in most of the county. The "South" designation is used even less frequently than the "North", to prevent confusion with South Cobb Drive (Georgia 280).

History

Built mainly in the 1940s, it was the first major highway through the county, preceding its rapid suburbanization as part of metro Atlanta.

Original routing

Until this point, both 41 and 3 came out of downtown Atlanta on Marietta Street and turned north onto Marietta Boulevard, leaving what was the city limits (until the 1959 annexation of Buckhead and other points north), and then crossing the Fulton/Cobb county line at the Chattahoochee River near Oakdale. Continuing roughly parallel to the old Western & Atlantic (then Louisville & Nashville at the time) railroad line (which still includes CSX's Tilford Yard and Norfolk Southern's Inman Yard in northwest Atlanta), it went just west of Vinings on South Atlanta Road, next to downtown Smyrna on Atlanta Road, and north into Marietta where it became Atlanta Street. Near the town square, it swapped sides with Georgia 5, continuing north on Church Street (before it became one-way southbound in 1984) and then northwest on Kennesaw Avenue to become Main Street in downtown Kennesaw and Acworth, before crossing the Cobb/Bartow county line.

Construction

Because the above routing took 41 and 3 through the central business districts of so many towns, Cobb Parkway was intended to be a bypass route. The continuation of the also-then-new Northside Parkway in Atlanta, the new route took it east of Vinings, well east of Smyrna, just east of Marietta, then crossing what is now "old 41" to pass west of Kennesaw and Acworth. It then continued out of Cobb and into Bartow, where it is now Joe Frank Harris Parkway after the 1980s governor of Georgia. The state redesignated U.S. 41 onto the new highway, but left Georgia 3 on the original route for many years, designating Cobb Parkway as Georgia 3E. The original route was later abandoned by the state and left to local control, with 3 again rejoining the newer U.S. 41.

Change in purpose

Satellite photos make clear the effect that this had on land development in the area. Within what is now Atlanta, that vast majority of businesses are along old 41 (Marietta Boulevard), while Northside Parkway is still surrounded by forested neighborhoods. Within Cobb, the situation is reversed, with Cobb Parkway having far more development than the roads of old 41.

With the road construction of Interstate 75 in Georgia nearly parallel to Cobb Parkway, the road became less of a traditional U.S. highway and more of a local route, though it still has just as much traffic at rush hour as I-75.

There have been ideas floated to run light rail along the highway north to Town Center at Cobb, though no formal proposals. This, along with commuter rail in the area, has been stalled by local politics and a lack of regional planning.

Landmarks

The Big Chicken is the best-known example of novelty architecture in the area, sitting (perhaps roosting) on the northeast corner of Cobb Parkway at Roswell Road since the 1950s as Marietta's major roadside attraction. This is now the center of Cobb's two major cross-county highways.

The Cumberland/Galleria area developed around the nucleus of two indoor shopping malls located opposite each other on Cobb Parkway, built in the 1970s immediately south of where Interstate 285 (completed in 1969) now crosses it. Cumberland Mall and then Galleria Specialty Mall were built on the former Boy Scouts' Camp Bert Adams, and were the beginning of one of the metro area's major edge cities. The Galleria has since become part convention center as the Cobb Galleria Centre.

The northwest part of the county is now developing rapidly, and the almost rural nature of the area is quickly disappearing, giving way to strip malls and tightly-packed subdivisions.

Cobb parkway in culture

• Reference to Highway 41 in "Ramblin' Man" , by The Allman Brothers.