DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. -- Sandy Radcliff didn't buy her Jeep with Candler Road in mind, but she's glad to have it.
"I'm not afraid of bumps," she told 11Alive's Commuter Dude Jerry Carnes. "It's just, I shouldn't have to do this every day."
Her commute between work and home depends on Candler Road. It's been a scene of constant change over the past two years. Crews replaced three separate waterlines beneath a three mile section of road. It was a major, time-consuming job. The metal plates that once lined the road are gone, leaving Sandy and her Jeep maneuvering the the bumpy ride.
Crews filed down the top layer of asphalt to make way for a fresh, new coat.
"When they started doing this we thought, 'This is great. They're finally going to get it fixed'. Then, it's been like this a month," Radcliff said.
When the milling was complete, manhole covers that were once flush with the road stood more than an inch above it. Crews later placed soft asphalt around them to soften the blow. That's when Radcliff reached out to Commuter Dude, wondering if crews would ever return to finish the job.
"Why not mill the road one day and pave the next?" Carnes asked DeKalb County spokesman Burke Brennan.
"If this was a simple road repaving with no other factors, that might be how we have to do it," Brennan said. But, he said with Candler Road, crews had to file down the asphalt first and then dig to lay new pipe. "Replace pipe, replace utilities, dig stuff up, break the sidewalk, fix that too, the paving is the last part of the process."
A couple of days after we contacted the county, asphalt crews arrived to begin the repaving. Dekalb County says those crews will work all week and into the weekend.
The entire project should be finished in early October.
