There’s an 18-mile stretch of I-85 in west Georgia that serves as a testing ground for a number of sustainable transportation technologies. If you look out your window at the right time, you might spot a wildflower meadow with a skinny six-foot aluminum tower standing tall amidst the flowers. The Ray C. Anderson Memorial Highway runs from LaGrange to the Alabama border, and has been the site of 13 projects over nine years, focusing on safer highways, transportation infrastructure advancement and interstate pollution reduction and remediation, according to Allie Kelly, executive director of The Ray.
The Ray is a nonprofit created by the Ray C. Anderson Foundation based in Georgia that facilitates projects on the highway, among other nationwide sustainable transportation work. One of those 13 projects is what The Ray calls their Landscape Lab, and just last year, the PheNode was incorporated in the project, too.