Calls to derail the U.S. 411 Connector project by characterizing it as a stealthy attempt to revive the controversial Northern Arc are unfounded, U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Marietta, said Wednesday.

Jeff Anderson, founder of the Northern Arc Task Force, made the charges in advertisements that ran in the Rome News-Tribune and other regional papers Wednesday.

Click to see more more about 411 Connector, including the Record of Decision and a route map.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Karen Handel echoed the statements later in the day, prompting Gingrey — who said he’s opposed to the Northern Arc — to question her motivation.

“I’m just so surprised that a candidate for governor would weigh in so strongly for something with such a sparsity of knowledge of the history of the project and its importance to the people of Bartow and Floyd County,” Gingrey said. “I can’t imagine where this is coming from. This has nothing to do with the Northern Arc.”

Gingrey said the planned Connector, a $175 million link between U.S. 411 at U.S. 41 and Interstate 75 at Ga. 20, predates the Northern Arc. It remains on the national priority list as a project that will help generate jobs and economic activity, he said.

“They vetted this to a fare-thee-well,” he said. “(Handel) is way off-base on this, and I’m disappointed because it’s hurtful to my congressional district.”

State Transportation Board member David Doss of Rome said the route selection followed a “long, tedious process.”

Doss also said attempts to discredit it are self-serving.

“This is a tactic,” he said. “It’s nothing more than Jeff Anderson and the Rollins family trying to interject themselves into the business of two counties trying to get a road built.”

The Rollins family owns property in Bartow County that would be affected by the route. The Georgia Department of Transportation first initiated the project in 1986, but a 1992 lawsuit by the family sent it back to the drawing board.

Anderson said Wednesday he has never met the family. Rollins family spokesman Donald Carson said he is familiar with the task force from its earlier activism against the proposed Arc.

“We’re not in any way officially linked to the Northern Arc Task Force,” Carson said. “But we would be supportive of their (new) effort, to the extent it prevents the road from going across the Rollins property.”

Opposition from the Northern Arc Task Force led then-governor Roy Barnes to kill the proposed link from I-75 at Ga. 20 in Bartow to I-85 in Gwinnett County in July 2002 — and contributed to Gov. Sonny Perdue’s win over Barnes that November.

Anderson said the 411 Connector would be cheaper and less destructive to property if it follows a more northerly route to hit I-75 at the Ga. 61 interchange.

“We’re very much for east-west connectivity in the state, but we’re asking for common sense,” he said. “The best use of tax dollars, the best economic return on investment, would be the original Ridge Route, Alternate G.”

Handel released a statement Wednesday afternoon that also pointed to the cost and political consequences.

“GDOT’s unrelenting focus on this particular route that links to (Ga. 20) — instead of more commonsense, cost-effective routes — raises serious questions about its ultimate intentions,” she said. “The voters have spoken once on the Northern Arc, ... and the answer is the same: ‘no.’”

GDOT spokeswoman Crystal Paulk-Buchanan said the department is “unable to comment on the issue at this time.”

But Doss said the current route was selected after extensive analysis of eight different possibilities, and the process took place under public scrutiny.

“The Connector was briefly linked with the Arc in an attempt to get funding, but when they started over the third time in 2003, it was with a clean sheet.”

The Federal Highway Administration signed off on the route in October 2008.

Documents included in the official Record of Decision note that the Ga. 61 Route G alternate — touted by Anderson now — would fail to draw enough traffic away from the U.S. 41 and Ga. 20 corridor.

Relieving congestion on Bartow surface streets and providing a direct link from Floyd to I-75 are equal priorities for the road, the report states.

Gingrey got $25 million in federal funds earmarked for the project, and right-of-way buys are expected to start this year, but no other funding has been identified.

Anderson said he revived the task force after a legislative makeover of the GDOT and Perdue’s announced plans to issue a new package of road construction bonds.

“We don’t know where that money or that legislation is going to be applied, but we will remain vigilant,” he said.