New Interchange to Relieve Hamilton Mill Traffic

Hamilton Mill residents will eventually see some traffic relief at I85 and Hamilton Mill Rd/Hamilton Mill Pkwy.  The Gwinnett County Department of Transportation is hoping a new interchange at I-85 and Gravel Springs Road/SR 324 will ease congestion in one of the busiest areas of Gwinnett.

Gwinnett County held an open house on Thursday at Ivy Creek Baptist Church to outline the plans which call for entrance and exit ramps to be added to the existing four-lane bridge on Gravel Springs Road.

Gwinnett County acting Transportation Director Alan Chapman said the county is working with the Georgia Department of Transportation to design exit lanes that will connect to a new overpass bridge the county recently installed. The new interchange is expected to relieve traffic at both the Hamilton Mill and Hwy. 20 interchanges.

“We’re early in the engineering phase of the project right now,” he said. “We’re doing our environmental work and receiving public input.”

“Both of those interchanges have been congested for a long time and we and GDOT have done what we can at those two locations but this really provides that third access point that we need,” he says.

Some of the public input heard was: “The Hamilton Mill area — it’s just backed up a lot,” said Teri Wilson, who lives next to the Gravel Springs Road overpass. “If I go up 85 — which I typically don’t drive that way because I’m a backroads kind of person — the interstate exchanges that back up there are just horrendous.”

The total cost of the project is $18 million, nearly half of which is being funded through the county’s Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax. The rest is being paid for through state and federal funds.

Chapman says construction is expected to begin in 2018.