Roswell is nixing changes that were made to the design of Big Creek Parkway in 2019 and will move forward with original plans.
When constructed, the new roadway will extend from Warsaw Road to Old Alabama Road and will include a bridge over Ga. 400.
Big Creek Parkway is intended to relieve traffic congestion between east and west Roswell by giving motorists an alternative to Holcomb Bridge Road.
“I live very close to the Old Alabama connection point,” Councilman David Johnson said during a recent meeting. “... I’m really tired — and the residents who live on the east side of Roswell are really tired — of it taking 45 minutes to get to City Hall.
“Once again, we voted for this. The east side feels a little left out a lot of times.”
City Council approved returning to the original project design and financial contract amendments during the regular meeting. Council approved up to $2.5 million for design consulting firm, Gresham Smith, and T-SPLOST program manager Atkins.
Roswell will also request up to $40 million from the Georgia General Assembly to assist with the project.
Big Creek Parkway costs are now up to $84 million, Director of Transportation Jeff Littlefield said.
In 2016, voters approved the nearly $60 million project to be funded by a Transportation Special Purpose Local Option sales tax. Plans have been on hold since 2019.
That year, funding decreased when the city tweaked the design to include Old Holcomb Bridge Road. In 2020, then-Mayor Lori Henry and City Council agreed to take $15 million away from Big Creek Parkway and send it to the Georgia Department of Transportation for a separate project — a new interchange at Holcomb Bridge Road and Ga. 400, for the coming Express Lanes.
The Ga. 400 Express Lanes will not connect to Big Creek Parkway. But, GDOT has agreed to construct the bridge portion of Big Creek Greenway while crews are separately working on the Ga. 400 Express Lanes Project, Littlefield said.
“(GDOT) will be out there with construction and to have two separate entities out there working in the same right-of-way is problematic. Their scheduling is very sensitive ... and they’re building a billion dollar project,” Littlefield said.
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