Lane Closures planned on Ga. 316 for Concrete Slab Replacement

If you don’t like being stuck in traffic I suggest in the upcoming days you find you some alternative routes. Starting next weekend on July 14, 2019, there is scheduled to be a partial shut down on a part of highway Ga 316 lanes.

The main purpose of this is to begin replacing the concrete slabs that have become damaged. Luckily enough the entire 316 will not be shut down only the part from Duluth Highway to Collins Hill Road. That area spans roughly about 1.3 miles which don’t seem like a lot initially. On an average non-traffic filled day that distance is roughly about one minute long. As drivers, we know that the one minute will be stressed due to the impending construction. The good news is that the main part of the construction will be conducted on weekends starting on Friday at 9 pm and ending on Monday at 5 am. That’s good for everyday work commuters, but not the best news for weekend travelers. Both the east and westbound sides of the highway will be blocked off. The worst part about it all is that construction is said to continue until July 21. The city has commented that there will be no construction going on during the time of July 4, which is a good thing since there is always more traffic around the holidays.

The question that I’m sure is leering over some commuters heads is: Why is there such a need to constantly keep replacing these highways?

Highways are the main source of transportation between one major city and the next. With all of this hard traffic, the roads tend to get beat up way worse than the average street. Sadly it’s just not the concrete we have to worry about. With vehicles going over 65mph it’s more than the highways getting damaged. Each year thousands of vehicles are affected on the road due to potholes and other defects during highway travels. Department of transportation officials is always looking for concrete solutions to help ease the issues that come behind damaged road foundations.

As for now, the quickest concrete solution is to possibly replace these areas with more slabs. Initially, highways were constructed and maintained with asphalt. The problem with asphalt is that the process takes a lot longer time to install and dry completely. Roads tend to be shut down for months on end only to be broken apart just as quick as completed. Not saying that asphalt isn’t doesn’t make a good highway, it just doesn’t have time to set completely in most cases. This causes the asphalt to break apart quicker than anticipated.

With high hopes, the job will be done and the roads will be back to normal before August…..Right in time for school and normal fall traffic to resume. Let’s just hope the weather doesn’t get in the way or we may be faced with a longer downtime in this area. Drive cautiously Ga 316 commuters.

See a video below of GA 316. This was from a prior year’s construction.