Haynes Bridge Road's New Route Should Open in March

Progress is being made on the project that moves Haynes Bridge Road to curve around the Alpharetta City Center's eastern side, according to Pete Sewczwicz, the city's director of Engineering and Public Works.

"The original layout like it's been approved in November 2011 is still in the works, is still being taken care of," he said.

He said the contractor is scheduled to start construction of the roundabout near the end of October.

"Basically, being done with everything, we are looking at March," Sewczwicz said.

That includes all of the punch lists, site stabilization, cleaning up erosion controls and the back fill along the curb and gutter.

What has held up obvious progress has been utilities. Fulton County's Water Department had been working on Thompson Street with water and sewer.

The last thing the city wants to do is install a road and then six months later the county comes in and tears it up, Sewczwicz said.

Georgia Power's main distribution lines to serve North Fulton runs along the existing road, he said.  The power company wants to get started in mid to late fall , before the winter season and large uses of power start.

"The goal of the contractor is to have the asphalt installed this year. We are doing everything we can to keep that moving," he said.

The city hopes its contractor can start work in two months on the roundabout planned at the Haynes Bridge Road-Thompson Street intersection. But a date hasn't been set.

"We don't want to do anything with the Haynes Bridge Road roundabout that would affect the library," he said. "We want to coordinate, so if the library wanted to start construction tomorrow, they could."

The new Alpharetta branch of the Atlanta-Fulton Library System is planned on three acres of land just north of the roundabout.

The original plan was to open the road at the end of the year as phase one of the project. The roundabout was phase two, and work on Academy Street, including its existing and the new intersection with Haynes Bridge Road, being phase three.

Sewczwicz said they don't want to close the northern section of Haynes Bridge Road.

"We are hoping to do everything without having to do a detour. That is the plan right now," he said.

However, they are going to evaluate the project to determine what might be better. A decision will be made on if having a detour for several weeks gets the work done faster, or do they work within the confines of construction limitations and only impede the flow of traffic between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

"Things are moving, but we are making sure we don't do things over two or three times again," he said.

The city had planned to get Haynes Bridge Road rerouted and the roundabout completed, and then close the current Haynes Bridge Road section to allow for library construction. But with the city and the library system working together on similar schedules, the existing road might be used for construction traffic.

Sewczwicz said the library site is in a hole now, and they might be able to use dirt excavated for the parking deck site at City Center to help fill in that hole. This will be answered during the City Center design process.

He said they city has a lot of work with the sidewalks and the brick pavers that are part of the design. It will take nearly a month to install the brick pavers. Just getting the plan to be in compliance with ADA .

Other Projects

• Cumming Street sidewalk – Basically done; planned to enable more individuals to walk to school.
• Maxwell Road sidewalk – In punch list phase; people are already using it to get to Verizon Wireless Amphiheatre.
• North Point Parkway sidewalk – "We are actually in the process of redesigning that to adjust for some challenges in the field," Sewczwicz said.
• Webb Bridge Park – Design work is next after a Webb Bridge Park Drainage study, with projects selected based on priorities and funding.