Frustrated motorists and wary pedestrians have spent more than two years navigating through an intersection construction project near Peachtree Corners’ Town Center.
At least eight times, records show, the project blew past expected completion dates, and for months this year work was idled.
Now, the city says the Bush Road-Medlock Bridge improvements should be completed by early March — barring severe weather.
How did a project projected to take six months stretch into a third year? COVID gets a good share of the blame, but records cite issues with communication, coordination or contractors. Problems cascaded down, the city says. And costs went up, for such things as asphalt, concrete and roadway signs, because of the delays.
The project could be a case study for problems in road projects. The pandemic was an unforeseen circumstance, disrupting supply chains and triggering worker shortages. But public records on the project point to potential oversights, project changes and untimely decisions.
Bush at Medlock is a congestion choke point, with routine backups at rush hours. To ease congestion and improve safety for motorists and pedestrians, the city in 2017 began planning improvements, including adding a dedicated turn lane on Bush for motorists heading north on Georgia 141. Gwinnett agreed to fund most of the work through SPLOST funds, because both Bush and Medlock are county roads, while the city of Peachtree Corners was responsible for managing the project.
The city awarded the construction contract to Vertical Earth on March 2, 2020, stipulating that “time is of the essence” and that the project should be completed in 180 working days. The COVID lockdown delayed the start for months. However, by February 2021 a city official said that significant work had been done, including drainage improvements and most concrete work and base layer asphalt. By fall, the city said, the project should be finished.
That same month, though, the city decided to make a change in the drainage system, and there was a delay in obtaining new pipe and doing additional excavation.
“Our delays in procurement have been unbelievable,” said Greg Ramsey, the city’s public works director.
After that, standing in the way of progress were poles, traffic signals and a logo.
Issue one: joint-use utility poles, strung with electrical wires as well as wires for various telecommunications companies and cable TV. Georgia Power had a contract to remove the poles but couldn’t do that until utility companies removed their wires. Some struggled with getting people to work, resulting in months of delay, Ramsey said.
“Each utility is its own entity,” he said.
New traffic signal poles were another significant issue. Gwinnett said changes were needed in the signal design, with pole height being one of the county’s concerns. The signal and wires had to be high enough to clear any vehicles. While Peachtree Corners project officials complained about delays in getting the county to sign off on signal plans, Gwinnett officials complained in emails that the city was failing to communicate. “To reiterate what we have requested at every meeting we have been invited to, please notify (a specific traffic engineer) daily before work activities begin,” wrote a county official. “This is to ensure we can be available to answer any questions in advance and head off any problems that may pop up.”
Meanwhile, in April 2021 Georgia Power complained that it had had no communication in a month on the joint-use signal poles. The company warned that once it got information, it would take eight to 10 weeks lead time for ordering and delivery of poles. “All of this has caused a significant delay in the GPC timeline for those project,” Christopher Boggs, with Georgia Power’s engineering services, wrote in an email to Keck & Wood, the engineering firm overseeing the project for the city.
“We were communicating with probably the wrong person,” Ramsey said of both Georgia Power and the county.
Keck & Wood and Vertical Earth did not respond to AJC emails requesting comment. Georgia Power spokesman John Kraft said the company was an engaged partner throughout the effort, closely coordinating with others. “We completed our portion of the work this past spring and replaced poles in the area as soon as it was possible to safety do so,” he wrote.
Gwinnett gave final approval to the signal plans in April 2022, and a spokesperson said the county did not request any changes after that.
By late May 2022, Keck & Wood told the city the project would take another three months to complete.
The logo issue popped up after that. Rather than string wires for the signals overhead, a decision was made to bury them in what’s called pullboxes, flush with the ground, Ramsey said. Those wires are the county’s, and box lids are required to be stamped with the logo of the responsible entity, so it is clear who should respond if issues arise.
But Vertical Earth said no pullboxes were available with the Gwinnett Department of Transportation logo and that it would take seven to nine months to get them because of procurement problems. “I don’t know when that fell through the cracks,” Ramsey said.
Keck & Wood said the city would temporarily use the Georgia Department of Transportation logo and switch it out later, to avoid the wait.
But by that point, work on the project had essentially come to a standstill. Ramsey said that during the wait related to signal work, Vertical Earth “demobilized” to focus on projects elsewhere.
That left those who regularly use the intersection fuming.
“It’s been under construction for like two and one-half years and it just sits and sits and sits,” a resident of a nearby subdivision emailed the city in August. A Berkeley Lake motorist asked a county commissioner for help getting the work done.
“I know they’re disappointed,” Ramsey said, conceding that the city might have communicated more often with the public about the project.
“It’s not that we are any less frustrated than the public,” said city Communications Director Louis Svehla. “We talk about this at every single meeting.”
In October, Keck & Wood told the city that once the city approved a change order with price adjustments for some supplies and work, the contractor estimated the project would be completed in three months. City council that month approved the change.
Then there was the issue of getting traffic signal equipment.
Vertical Earth is ordering it, Ramsey said, and it will be constructed in December and January. Vertical Earth has assured the city that the project will be a priority at this point and work would be completed by the end of February. “We have asked for their absolute focus, including finishing the landscaping,” Ramsey said.
The project’s price tag is now projected at about $1.8 million, after five change orders that pushed up costs by almost $330,000.
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