One of Gwinnett County’s most congested roadways may get some relief in the near future.
Relatively speaking.
The Gwinnett Board of Commissioners approved this week a $4.9 million engineering and design contract for the widening of Ga. 124 — a.k.a. Scenic Highway — between U.S. 78 in Snellville and Sugarloaf Parkway in Lawrenceville. It’s the first step toward what will likely result in the 4.5-mile stretch having six lanes instead of four.
The rest of the process will likely take several years.
“If you go up and down Scenic Highway any time of any day except after dark, it is a traffic nightmare,” District 4 Commissioner John Heard said. “So there’s gotta be relief along there.”
Gwinnett transportation director Alan Chapman called Scenic Highway one of the most congested roads in the county, and said the stretch between U.S. 78 and Ronald Reagan Parkway is “one of the heaviest volume four-lane roads in the region.”
It sees as many as 60,000 vehicles a day.
Gwinnett drivers will eventually see relief, Chapman said, but it’s going to be awhile in the making. He said the state already moved allocated federal funding up by about 15 years, but it’s still in “the 2024 to 2030 period.”
“We suspect that those funds may be moved up even further as we get further along with the engineering contract,” Chapman said.
He later added: “It will depend upon the funding, how quickly we can go through the environmental process and get the funds developed, and there will be significant right of way acquisition. It’s almost a four-and-a-half-mile section of road and it is very compact.”
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