Drivers are up a Johns Creek with road construction

Cost: $2.43 million (local and state grants)

Completion: November

Project: Old Alabama Road between Buice and Medlock Bridge roads

Description: The project, which is being managed by GDOT, will widen Old Alabama Road from Buice to Medlock Bridge to four lanes, two in each direction, separated by a 20-foot-wide median. A 5-foot sidewalk will be built south of Old Alabama Road and a 10-foot multi-use trail will be added on the north side. An additional left-turn lane will be added on Medlock Bridge Road onto Old Alabama Road.

Cost: $3.62 million (all federal)

Completion: October 2016

Project: Parsons Road Bridge replacement

Description: GDOT is overseeing the construction of a replacement to a 50-year-old bridge that will be wider and include a 10-foot-wide trail on one side and a 5-foot-wide sidewalk on the other side.

Cost: $1.56 million (all federal)

Completion date: October

Project: Bell Road Bridge replacement

Description: The Georgia Department of Transportation project, currently on hold while an agreement with a contractor is being worked out, would build a new bridge. It includes a 10-foot trail on one side and a 5-foot-wide sidewalk on the other.

Cost: $1.46 million (all federal)

Completion date: End of November

Project: Roundabout at Bell and Boles roads

Description: Construction of a roundabout and preparation of a site for a future pocket park. Construction will begin in the very near future.

Cost: $1.47 million (all federal)

Completion date: March 2016

Project: Roundabout at Crossington and Sargent roads

Description: Tentatively set to begin today, this project will enable residents in the Crossington subdivision to more safely enter and exit their neighborhood, reduce the potential for dangerous T-bone collisions, and encourage large vehicles to use more appropriate routes.

Cost: $448,899 (all local)

Completion date: End of December.

Project: Jones Bridge at McGinnis Ferry Road

Description: Tentatively set to begin Sept. 21, a new right-turn lane will be added on Jones Bridge onto McGinnis Ferry Road. A 1,000-foot merging lane also will be added on McGinnis Ferry to enable vehicles to transition into traffic. This project will reduce wait times at the traffic signal.

Cost: $246,832 (all local)

Completion date: End of December.

Project: Jones Bridge Road extension

Description: Tentatively set to begin Sept. 28, the contract for the project was expanded in August to include an 850-foot extension of the second of two southbound lanes on Jones Bridge south of State Bridge Road (starting near the Waffle House). The extension will provide motorists more time to merge safely into traffic and help relieve congestion.

Cost: $440,000 (all local)

Completion: Spring 2016

You can’t go a mile in Johns Creek these days without passing an orange traffic cone.

The North Fulton burg is a hive of road construction. Seven projects worth millions of dollars are either underway or about to kick off.

Like it or not, the city of 83,000 finds itself a popular cut-through in the heart of north metro Atlanta. Drivers traveling from as far as East Cobb, South Forsyth, North DeKalb and West Gwinnett counties are taking detours through Johns Creek to avoid gridlock on I-285, Ga. 400 and I-85, said Johns Creek Public Works Director Tom Black.

“We recently did a study that said about 53 percent of the traffic through the city originated outside the city,” Black said. “And the destination was outside the city, too,”

Johns Creek is the ninth-largest city in Georgia and one of the wealthiest in the nation. Before the city incorporated in 2006, residents had long complained that the taxes they contributed for everything from police protection to road improvements were being siphoned off by Fulton County residents to the south.

“We were basically ignored for about 25 years or so by Fulton County in terms of road improvements,” said Black.

Now the city is making up for lost time in a big way.

Jones Bridge and Old Alabama roads are being widened. Bridges at Bell and Parsons roads are being torn out and replaced. And roundabouts are being installed in two places: at the intersection of Bell and Boles roads and the intersection of Crossington and Sargent roads.

The total price tag? $11.7 million, about two-thirds of which is federally funded. Some of the projects should be complete by the end of the year; all should be wrapped up by October 2016, according to the city’s schedule.

Area drivers have been unhappy about the delays.

Kelly Hall lives off Buice Road. As such, her neighborhood is sort of sandwiched between the road projects on Jones Bridge Road and Old Alabama. Hall said she’s resorted to traveling back roads through neighborhoods to avoid the construction. Even so, it’s taking another 10 or 15 minutes to get anywhere.

“I know you always have to leave a little extra time for traffic, but it’s so hard to predict,” Hall said. “You don’t know if it is going to take you an extra hour or a few minutes.”

Angie Jones, who lives in a neighborhood off Old Alabama Road, said city officials have been responsive to resident complaints, but timing so many projects at once has been frustrating.

“That was clearly not well-thought-out,” Jones said.

Jones got stuck on Old Alabama Road for 45 minutes trying to get from her neighborhood to Medlock Bridge Road on the afternoon of Sept. 11. The three-mile drive typically only takes five minutes.

City officials have acknowledged that a particularly heinous backup occurred after construction began on the Old Alabama Road widening project that day.

The “unprecedented congestion” was caused by a perfect storm of snafus, a city statement said.

The problems included a broken traffic light camera, no road sensor in one lane, unclear pavement striping, and insufficient messaging signs. Those issues have since been corrected, according to the Georgia Department of Transportation, which is handling the project with contractor C.W. Matthews. Neighbors say traffic still bottlenecks where Old Alabama Road has been temporarily narrowed, but it’s flowing better since those changes were made.

The city has tried to stagger the road projects so they aren’t all happening at once, said Johns Creek spokesman Doug Nurse. However, the exact timing of the construction is often dependent on the availability of state and federal funding, as well as the timing of the approval process. Weather delays and other construction factors can also impact the timeline.

“If we wait until one project is done before we start another, we’ll never meet all our transportation needs,” Nurse said.