Roswell Road bridge closer to becoming less clogged

By April Hunt

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Breaking the bottleneck that is the Roswell Road bridge just got $2 million closer.

State transportation officials -- faced with Sandy Springs moving along on its own on how to best solve a gridlock nightmare -- have agreed to move that much money into a plan to widen the span over I-285.

Final designs won’t be approved until next month. But in commuter terms, the cash is a green light that some work will begin easing traffic there by as early as next year.

“Fantastic,” said Chris Taylor, whose four-mile commute always gets pinched at the intersection. “They have to do something, or else people are just going to be sitting there.”

The bridge is one of the worst intersections in the metro Atlanta area. Its cramped five lanes are home to nearly an accident a day, and almost 23,000 vehicles travel over it during daily rush hours -- when traffic can move.

State transportation leaders recognized the problem on the bridge, the oldest on I-285, a decade ago. They made plans to widen the bridge and even went through the painful process of deciding where right of way would be taken to make the plan work.

And then ... nothing. The Revive 285 project, to remake the entire northern arc of the Perimeter, has since become the state priority.

That project, though, is at least another decade away. City leaders last year decided they couldn’t wait anymore and paid a consultant $250,000 to figure out how to use the existing right of way to build another lane on the existing bridge.

The city planned to use a $1.5 million federal earmark, which would cover about half of the cost to give traffic in both directions a designated lane to turn onto I-285.

State transportation officials agreed to help with design work but made it clear that there was no funding to be had, given the economic downturn.

That was before designs were unveiled earlier this year. Designs not only call for the widened bridge but also adding new lanes in each direction on the highway ramps and improvements to nearby surface streets.

Commuters raved. And Sandy Springs Mayor Eva Galambos said the city was more committed than ever to getting the project done.

After all, Galambos had made the fix a cornerstone of her re-election campaign last year. And the city had already spent millions on projects to improve traffic flow.

The north Fulton County city is one of the only cities in the metro area to synchronize its traffic lights along the thoroughfare. The city also installed an override system that can control the lights remotely to keep traffic moving.

Doing so lets it ease the commute when there is a crash or problem on Ga. 400 and motorists peel away to Roswell Road instead. But the high-tech projects have proved useless against old-fashioned gridlock on the bridge.

“This is the priority, the No. 1,” Galambos said. “It’s an area with the most traffic accidents in the city, an absolute bottleneck, and we cannot wait any longer to solve it.”

The state transportation board, swayed by the city’s representative Brandon Beach, agreed. It decided at a recent meeting that it would move money from other projects to the Roswell Road bridge.

The projects haven’t been disclosed, but a spokesman said they are not as shovel-ready.

“This project is a lot further along than some others, so it made sense to move our resources,” said DOT spokesman Mark McKinnon.

State officials are now reviewing the city’s plans and are expected to give final approval by next month. That would put the project on pace to be out for bid by January, with construction starting early next year.

That could set the stage for another showdown. State officials estimate a bridge project to be under construction for about two years. City leaders want to drain the clog on the Roswell Road bridge in about half that time.

“I say go for it,” said Margaret Dunn, a finance worker who takes different routes from her Gwinnett County home to her Roswell Road office, all to avoid the bridge. “Now from 3:30 until who knows when, you can be stuck there. I’m all for anything that puts an end to that.”