MACON, Ga. — If you travel through Macon on Highway 247 to get to Robins Air Force Base or work, a long-term construction project may impact you.
The Georgia Department of Transportation is preparing to demolish eight bridges on the highway that could impact your commute.
"It has been here for a minute, we have been here about 14 years," said mechanic Miterian Bibbs.
He works at White's Auto off of Hawkinsville Road along with his dad.
"My dad has been doing it for about 40 years, I have been doing it for about five years myself," Bibbs said.
Bibbs says when he is working on cars in the shop, traffic is "really heavy, heavy."
"We have a lot of bridges in fact, throughout the entire state of Georgia that were built 50, 60, 70 years ago," Penny Brooks with GDOT said.
Brooks says some bridges in Central Georgia are not up to standards.
"State route 247, we have bridges that are over Rocky Creek, and several overflows," Brooks said.
She says eight bridges will be replaced between Hawkinsville Road and Houston Avenue on 247 starting this week.
"Right now we have one lane closed in the northbound lanes, utilities are coming in doing the work they need to do before we take down the bridges," Brooks said.
Once that work is done around November, all traffic will be shifted to the northbound lanes.
"One side will have the construction happening at any one time, and we can get the traffic moving in both directions on either side while the construction is happening on the other side," Brooks said.
She says most of the work will happen during the daytime between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. While crews get ready to start working, Bibbs says he's ready for the new bridges.
"So I think them doing that will probably help them out a whole lot," Bibbs said.
Brooks says the project cost $19.5 million with GDOT picking up the bill. She says construction is expected to last through the spring of 2022.
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