GAINESILLE – Nine weeks and a lot-more-money-than-expected is all it took to repair one of the most heavily traveled “shortcuts” in Hall County, but Sardis Road is open once again.
On a very rainy Friday morning early in October the shoulder appeared to be crumbling alongside the westbound lane between the compactor site and the elementary school. With the school in such close proximity cautious county leaders closed the road and contacted their on-call contractor to fix the problem ASAP.
That little “hole”, however, turned out to be an abyss before too long, one the on-call team needed a lot more time and a lot more money to repair than initially expected.
Fran Mar and Brackett Drives became the designated detour and saw more traffic passing through the quiet neighborhood in the ensuing nine weeks than they normally see in several years.
Connecting between Dawsonville Highway (SR 53) and Thompson Bridge Road (SR 60) via Ledan Road became so congested at times that many people simply drove the “long-way around”, traversing downtown Gainesville instead.
Some detour signs remain as of this writing, but the barricades are removed and the roadway is open.
