Balfour Beatty served as the general contractor for the construction of 9.1-miles of new highway starting at US 441 and extending northeast to SR 24. The project consisted of grading, drainage, base, asphalt plant mix paving and a portion of concrete paving.
The project included the construction of eight bridges (four each dual bridges) and two box culverts. The total length of all eight bridges is 4,782-LF with a total bridge area of 197,258-sf.
The eight bridges included:
- US 441 Bridge – two small dual bridges – 304-lf, four-span bridge over US441/SR 29
- Little Black Creek Bridge – two, small dual bridges – 300-lf, three-span bridge over Little Black Creek, including two spans of trestle
- Reedy Creek Bridge – two, small dual bridges – 287-LF (four-span) over the Creek including two spans of trestle
- Oconee River Bridge – two, long dual bridges – 1500-LF (nine 120-foot spans and three 140-foot spans) over the Oconee River, which required temporary trestle access
The new divided roadway section is two 12-foot travel lanes with 6-foot shoulders inside and 6.5-foot shoulders outside in both directions with a 44-foot median between the travel lanes. This project completes the SR540 Fall Line Freeway connecting Columbus, GA with Augusta, GA in an east-west travel direction.