Road construction should not disrupt fair traffic

Enough road construction should be completed on the southern extension of William Few Parkway to accommodate traffic for the Columbia County Fall Fair, officials say.

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"We put a rush on it (at) the fairground end, because we wanted that access to be open for the fair," said the county's Construction and Maintenance Services Interim Director Matt Schlachter of the $2.3 million road project.

The fair starts Nov. 5. Once work is complete, the main entrance to the fairgrounds, located on Columbia Road near Patriots Park, will be on the William Few Parkway extension.

"They're working on the tie-in with Columbia Road right now," Schlachter said Thursday. "Hopefully, we can start doing some paving the first part of next week."

Once complete, the new road will connect Columbia Road to Chamblin Road.

The extension is meant to ease traffic in the area added by Grovetown High School, which is located on Chamblin Road.

The state Department of Transportation also plans to extend William Few Parkway east to Hardy McManus Road as part of a $23.7 million project.

Work started on the southern extension earlier this year. Schlachter hopes to conclude the work within two months.

"We're getting a lot closer," he said. "We had some utilities that had to be relocated and that held us up. We had to do some redesign on the Chamblin Road end to save us some road closures, and that held us up for a little while, too. We're back in full swing now."

During a Tuesday county commission meeting, officials were to approve a nearly $124,000 project to add sidewalks to the area.

The sidewalks will be located on Chamblin Road from the Ashbrook subdivision to William Few Parkway and from the fairgrounds to Patriots Park.

The work will be included as part of the parkway project.