The Cherokee County Board of Commissioners has approved a $78,000 traffic study for the Ga. 140 corridor, a move one county official hopes will prod state highway officials to accelerate their own plans for the road.

The study, by the Pond & Co. engineering firm, covers Ga. 140 from I-575 in Canton to the Little River Bridge on the Cherokee-Fulton county line near Roswell and Alpharetta. It would determine the need for short-, mid- and long-range capacity improvements.

Staff said the Georgia Department of Transportation has long-range plans to widen Ga. 140 from two to four lanes, but Board Chairman Harry Johnston told commissioners he’s heard that may not happen until about 2037. “That’s a completely unacceptable period of time,” Johnston said.

“We have a tentative plan to try to make some improvements substantially at Cherokee County’s own cost … and maybe persuade DOT to accelerate the Fulton County leg of improvements so we have much better two-lane road with better functioning intersections and continuous turn lanes,” he said.

“It wouldn’t be a forever solution, but it would buy us 10 or more years of reasonable productivity for that road,” Johnston said.

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The renovation of Jekyll Island's Great Dunes golf course includes nine holes designed by Walter Travis in the 1920s for the members of the Jekyll Island Club. Several holes that were part of the original layout where located along the beach and were bulldozed in the 1950s.(Photo by Austin Kaseman)

Credit: Photo by Austin Kaseman