A busy stretch of Georgia Highway 42/North Druid Hills Road in DeKalb County has shut down for the next three months, the state's Department of Transportation (GDOT) announced during the last full week of April.
The state agency began work April 26 to replace an old bridge on the highway between Interstate 85 and Ga. 13/Buford Highway, sending drivers on a 5-mi. detour.
WSB-TV got a look at the bridge in the Atlanta suburb of Brookhaven as crews worked on the final preparations. Over the next 90 days, they will tear down and replace the bridge over North Peachtree Fork Creek with a wider one. The current structure has been in place for 62 years.
The businesses next to the work site — a gas station and an LUV car wash — will continue to be accessible from North Druid Hills Road, according to the TV station.
New Bridge Designed to Handle Increasing Traffic
The North Druid Hills Road bridge over the North Fork of Peachtree Creek will be replaced with a structure designed to be better equipped for moving increasing traffic levels in the area. The new structure also will be beneficial for pedestrians with wider sidewalks and ADA-compliant ramps at crosswalks.
Officials with GDOT also believe that when the road/bridge project is completed, there will be a reduction in traffic congestion and crash frequency at the interchange of I-85 and North Druid Hills Road.
To that end, GDOT's plans for the work area include adding a displaced left turn for the westbound to southbound movement of traffic, constructing an additional bridge over I-85, adding a braided ramp from the I-85 northbound off-ramp to an I-85 northbound access road along, with replacing the North Druid Hills Road bridge.
A displaced left-turn intersection, or DLT — formerly known as a continuous-flow intersection — is an alternative intersection that allows left turning vehicles and thru-traffic to travel simultaneously through a main roadway junction, GDOT described. Their design directs cars and trucks to first cross opposing thru-lanes at a signal-controlled intersection several hundred feet from the main intersection. Left-turning vehicles then travel on a new roadway parallel to the opposing lanes and execute the left-turn simultaneously with the thru-traffic at the primary intersection.
On April 26, the transportation department's contractors closed the North Druid Hills Road bridge to safely expedite the bridge reconstruction work. During the effort, a signed 5-mi. detour route is in place, and motorists will still have direct access from the I-85 interchange, via Exit 89, and properties adjacent to the bridge work zone during the project's timeline.
The bridge replacement is part of the larger I-85 at Ga. 42/North Druid Hills Road interchange upgrades now under way.
Motorists Concerned About Traffic Delays
Despite the expected benefits from the GDOT road project, many area drivers expressed their unhappiness about the project to WSB-TV
"I know how much traffic comes through that corridor, [but closing it] for three months? That's terrible for commuters," said Josiah Oakley. "It's terrible for people trying to get into the city and get into Buckhead from here."
But a GDOT spokesperson explained that shutting the road down for three months is the most efficient way to get the job done.
"Ninety days of a full closure allows us to do it quickly," said the state agency's Natalie Dale. "That allows us to get it complete [and] get out of the road so that traffic can get moving in that area again."
The construction will not allow Aisha Johnson to drive straight through on her way to work, she told WSB-TV. Instead, she will have to follow the detour along Ga. 13/Buford Highway, which she worries will become clogged with traffic.
"I guess we'll make it some kind of way," Johnson remarked. "I'm just glad I know the back roads. And other people need to learn the back roads too."
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