ATLANTA — The Georgia Department of Transportation’s major construction project along Interstate 285 caused traffic delays and slower business Saturday for some businesses in southwest Atlanta.
Channel 2’s Eryn Rogers was live from Boulder Park Drive in southwest Atlanta for WSB Tonight at 11 p.m.
GDOT shut down a two-mile stretch of I-285 in both directions between Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Cascade Road from Friday night through Monday morning as part of a three-year, $370 million rebuild project along a 17-mile stretch of the interstate.
Workers are removing 60-year-old concrete and replacing it with asphalt during the closure.
Business owners and employees along Cascade Road said the shutdown created traffic backups and kept customers away during what is typically a busy weekend.
“It’s been very slow today, so people are struggling to get here, I guess,” said Mani Benni, a barista at Café Bartique.
Benni said he was surprised when he arrived for work Saturday afternoon.
“It was completely empty, and that is not usual especially on a Saturday,” he said.
He said traffic along Cascade Road was heavily congested throughout the day.
“The cars have been practically stopped for a little bit,” Benni said.
He also noticed more tractor-trailers using the road during the interstate shutdown.
“Usually we don’t see trucks, or at least as much as we’ve seen on this road specifically, but there have been so many trucks,” he said.
Employees at The Salted Fork also described Saturday as unusually slow.
“We haven’t seen no foot traffic here,” server Mikaylen Allison said.
Chef Jarvus Jones said MARTA delays also made it difficult for him to get to work.
“I ended up not seeing a bus for an hour, so I ended up walking to get to work, and by the time I seen the next bus, I was 20 minutes down the road, and that was an hour and a half later,” Jones said.
Employees along the corridor said the latest construction frustrations come after an Atlanta Department of Transportation project on Cascade Road that lasted more than three years and ended around Labor Day also impacted businesses in the area.
Despite the inconvenience, some workers said they are relieved the interstate shutdown is temporary.
“It’s just the weekend for us,” Jones said.
GDOT officials said this is the first of multiple planned interstate shutdowns tied to the project. The agency said using full closures allows crews to complete the work in three years instead of six.
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