Construction on the Roswell Road bridge over Interstate 285 will result in fewer headaches for drivers caught in congestion between Northwood Drive and Allen Road.

The city of Sandy Springs and the Georgia Department of Transportation held the first of two open houses Tuesday at City Hall — the second will be Feb. 1 from 6 to 8 p.m. — displaying maps and plans of the $3.6 million project to about 30 residents.

“The schedule is to be totally finished by the end of October,” department spokesman Mark McKinnon said. “We’re fast-tracking it. We don’t want Roswell Road to be backed up any longer than necessary. Construction is painful, but people will be pleased with the results.”

Motorists may have noticed crews on the shoulders of I-285, which McKinnon said is the prelude to the actual extension of the east side of the bridge.

"They’ve already started,” he said about Marietta-based contractor C.W. Matthews. “They’ve done utility relocation. They started to take out some striping on I-285. Most of the work is going to be on I-285 first in order to put up a support structure for a bridge. That’s what will be done for the first couple of months.”

Anticipation far beyond months — all the way to 2032 — has been factored in by the project’s engineers at Denver, Colo.-based Arcadis Engineering Consultants, whose $250,000 drawings helped land the GDOT project.

The bridge currently handles about 43,000 vehicles a day, a number slated to bump up to more than 52,000 in another 20 years.

“Right now, anyone knows that another 9,000 vehicles on Roswell Road would be pretty devastating,” McKinnon said.

However, not only adding a turn-only lane in the middle of the bridge but also extra lanes to the I-285 on-ramps will improve traffic flow, he said.

“You’ve doubled your storage capacity,” McKinnon said. “You’ve added all this storage that helps keep traffic from backing up into the general purpose lanes that causes congestion.”

Garrin Coleman, city deputy director of public works, said staff members look forward to the project.

“We’re excited about it,” he said. “We’ll make sure we keep communication open with the communities and with GDOT.”

Pat and Denny Wigbels, who live near the Johnson Ferry and Abernathy roads widening project slated for a December completion date, said they approved of the bridge widening.

“We wanted to make sure it’s not another mess,” Ms. Wigbels said. “We like it. It will certainly help.”

Information: www.sandyspringsga.gov/roswellroadbridge.