Details Of SR 316 Transformation Spelled Out At Town Hall Meeting

Between 2024 and 2027, the Georgia Department of Transportation will construct full interchanges with flyovers on SR 316 at the Oconee Connector and at Jimmy Daniell Road as well as a flyover of Virgil Langford Road without on and off ramps.

These projects will be “bundled,” Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell told in-person and remote participants in a Town Hall meeting last week.

They are part of a improvements to the Atlanta-to-Athens highway that include flyovers scheduled for 2026 of McNutt Creek Drive, for 2027 of Mars Hill Road, and for 2028 of Julian Drive.

In addition, the interchanges of Dials Mill Road and Dials Mill Extension, possibly with some combination of a flyover and a full interchange, are scheduled for 2024 and 2025, Daniells said, though details are not worked out at present.

Daniells and fellow commissioners Amrey Harden, Chuck Horton, and Mark Saxon responded to 20 questions posed by seven citizens during the hour-long session at the Civic Center on Hog Mountain Road. The session was live-streamed as well.

The range of questions was wide, but many dealt with road projects, such as the widening of Experiment Station Road and of U.S. 441 from the county line to Watkinsville, and improvements to Hog Mountain Road from Rocky Branch Road to U.S. 441 east of Butler’s Crossing.

Many of the road projects had been discussed earlier in the day by county Public Works Director Jody Woodall at a meeting of regional transportation planners, who also gave details of the construction on Malcom Bridge Road at the school intersections that will take place this summer.

For more on this story, with a video of the Town Hall Meeting, please go to Oconee County Observations.