Transform 285/400, the massive reconstruction project of the I-285/Ga. 400 interchange, will continue tying up traffic for another year as the state has pushed its completion date back to late 2021.
The Georgia Department of Transportation and contractor North Perimeter Contractors began the project in 2017 and expected a completion of main work around October of this year.
GDOT said the delay is due to a change in plans to replace, rather than repair, existing bridges at Peachtree-Dunwoody Road, Glenridge Drive and I-285 over Ga. 400. That decision “resulted in additional utility relocations that have taken longer than expected to complete and have created challenges to completing activities on the scheduled critical path,” said GDOT spokesperson Natalie Dale.
Once Transform 285/400 is done, GDOT plans to follow up by adding toll lanes on I-285 and Ga. 400 in the same area in a massive, multistage project that could begin as early as 2022. Dale said that GDOT does not “anticipate” any delays in the toll lanes project due to the Transform 285/400 schedule change.
The estimated timeframe for the toll lanes project was itself pushed back one to four years after GDOT said it ran into concerns that issuing a single construction bid would be ineffective and a future release of separate bids for the various stages is now anticipated.
Transform 285/400 is intended to rearrange the interchange to improve the flow of existing traffic and make it safer by reducing merges. It includes some related projects, including reconfiguring highway access points at Glenridge Drive and Abernathy and Peachtree-Dunwoody roads.
Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify that a construction bid does not yet exist for the toll lanes project.