Bids opening Friday for major road projects

ATLANTA - Bids were to be opened Friday on three major road projects in our area.

The state Department of Transportation was to open bids on the planned widening of a section of Dawsonville Highway west of Gainesville and the replacement of two bridges on Gillsville Highway, southeast of town.

The Dawsonville High work will involve a three-mile stretch of the road from Lake Ranch Court and Old Sardis Road to Duckett Mill Road. Teri Pope with the state DOT says they will have a better idea on a start date after the contract is awarded. "The soonest we will see work on this project is this winter."

Due to traffic on the existing road, the project will take anywhere from two to three years to complete.

The construction will also include bringing together Lyncliff Drive and Sardis Road so they make an intersection.

The bridges that are beig replaced on Gillsville Highway cross the north part of the Oconee River and the overflow from the river.

Pope says construction could start in the sometime in the spring.

The third of the projects and the most expensive, by far, is the planned $100 million reconstruction of the notorious Georgia 316/Interstate 85 interchange in north Gwinnett.

The project calls for remaking the interchanges between the two highways, building two new ``flyover bridges'' to take traffic that now weaves across lanes of traffic and funnel it over to traditional merges at the right edge of I-85.

The plan also calls for building or rebuilding eleven other bridges and installing high occupancy vehicle lanes. He says the DOT has given itself 90 days to pick a contractor.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.}