Even with the recent holiday season and our current spate of cold weather, contractors and crews adding an Interstate 185 interchange at Old Cusseta Road have made a huge amount of progress over the past couple of months. The most visible sign of the future interchange is the demolished segment of Farr Road that until recently ran alongside the Interstate 185 overpass. Project plans required the elimination of this portion of Farr Road to make room for the interchange's ramps. The second most visible sign of the future interchange is the newly-graded land along the south part of the overpass that will eventually become an off-ramp.
A couple of weeks ago, contractors opened the just finished - new signage and everything - realigned section of Farr Road that starts at what used to be C Street and then shifts traffic to the east, goes around Parkway Place Apartments and connects to Old Cusseta Road about a block from Bedford Avenue. If you use a GPS system to get around Columbus, please know that some of these apps have not yet updated their maps. As of this blog posting, there were still pop-up closure alerts for Farr Road. If your route uses Farr Road through this area, you can take the new segment and end up very close to where you used to go.
Meanwhile, over on the other side of this project, you may encounter a long row of utility teams on Cusseta Road near Odis Spencer Stadium, where they're moving lines to make room for a new paved multi-use trail that will run along a widened roadway. At the Cusseta Road and Old Cusseta Road merge point, contractors will later convert the 'traffic triangle' into an easier-to-navigate roundabout. With all the orange-and-white barrels everywhere and teams sometimes working on both sides of the roadway, driving alert and paying full attention to surroundings through this area is a must.
Project engineers and contractors have scheduled completion of this project to occur in spring of 2026. With a bit more than a year's worth of work to come, most of it will be focused on the transformation of the Interstate 185 overpass into a fully-functional interchange. Strategically, having the new exits to and from Old Cusseta Road just before the interstate's terminal interchange at US 280 in the Fort Moore region will allow motorists, especially commercial truck drivers, to have more route options and flexibility on Columbus's south end. Those who will eventually travel more directly to their destinations by using the future Old Cusseta Road interchange will relieve traffic entering and exiting the interstate from the Fort Moore area as well as the more northward interchange at St. Mary's Road. More efficient traffic flow equals safer and happier drivers, which also equals a happier community overall.