Georgia DOT has awarded the first construction contract in a planned 39.2 mile widening of state route 20 from Cartersville in Bartow County to Cumming in Forsyth County. The current estimated project costs total $768.7 million for the corridor.
Construction will soon start to widen 1.383 miles of SR 20 between I-575 and Scott Road in Canton. The construction bid was awarded to CW Matthews Contracting in the amount of $27.95 million after bids were received in March.
The project will widen SR 20 from two travel lanes to six lanes with a twenty feet raised center median. Northside Hospital Cherokee and a 352,000 square feet shopping center are located close by.
In addition to the nearly $28 million dollar construction cost, right of way acquisition incurred $42.8 million in expenses during 2017–2019. The project is funded through house bill 170.
SR 20 Widening between Canton and Cumming in six segments
The widening between I-575 and Scott Road is the first of six segments programmed between Canton and Cumming. The corridor will be a six-lane roadway with a center raised median when complete. Segments are budgeted for construction starting one per year from now to 2025.
Though preliminary conceptual work started in 2012 to improve the corridor, the project gained significant momentum with the December 2015 announcement the roadwork would be fully funded through the state’s then-recently passed Transportation Funding Act of 2015. Henry County has also benefited from TFA with approximately $297.5 million in state funding budgeted towards active major projects.
Other areas of SR 20 planned for improvement
West of Canton, widening state route 20 between I-75 and I-575 is in preliminary engineering. Right of way acquisition is scheduled to start in 2024 with construction budgeted in FY 2027. Locally, the widening of state route 20 between I-75 and Phillips Drive in McDonough is purchasing right of way and lets for construction in May 2021.
Other planned projects include the single-point urban interchange at I-20 and SR 20 / 138 in Conyers (construction 2024) and widening from four to six lanes between Peachtree Industrial Blvd and Buford Highway in Gwinnett County. The widening project is funded through local dollars for design and right of way acquisition with Georgia DOT funding construction in FY 2023.
GDOT previously invested $143.6 million to widen 7.5 miles of state route 20 to four lanes between Peachtree Industrial Blvd and Samples Road in Cumming. The final segment in that project opened to traffic in May 2018.