If you don’t have the time to read this whole post, the takeaway is:

The City of Atlanta is beginning a new project starting this Friday to repave five miles of 75/85, south of the connector down to University Avenue, that will continue on weekends for the next eight months.

Reports from the Georgia Department of Transportation claim that parts of the connector will be closed from 9PM Friday until 5AM Monday for at least the next 30 weeks. The contractor undertaking this project “has drafted a plan for almost no work on traffic lanes from Monday to Friday, so weekday commuters should not be affected,” according to Associated Press.

The target completion date for the project is November 30, 2008.

Commuters are being advised to avoid the connector throughout the duration of the project, if possible. All you OTPers will be forced to clog up Peachtree, Piedmont and other city veins, and in addition learn Atlanta’s nonsensical residential roads.

Why this will be more painful than necessary:
- Just in time for baseball season! This equates to thousands of lost Atlanta Braves fans wandering Dowtown, Midtown, and Buckhead trying to find alternate routes home.
- Apparently the pavement they use to pave the Connector only has a lifespan of 12 years. < crickets > Is there seriously not another option that would last a bit longer? Is the city government being cheap on us?
- Good thing they correlated the repaving of one of the country’s worst highway interchanges with the 14th Street bridge replacement project and 10th Street being torn up! It’s a splendid time to move out of Midtown!