EAST FORSYTH -- Forsyth residents commuting to or through Gwinnett County will ride through some extra daytime traffic this week.

From 9 a.m.-4 p.m. until Wednesday, traffic will be intermittently reduced to one lane in each direction on Buford Highway (Hwy. 20 east) between James Burgess Road in Forsyth and Sugar Hill Road in Gwinnett.

The roadwork is being done to allow crews to install fiber optic cables to create communication between the corridor’s traffic signals.

The Georgia Department of Transportation advises the traffic could cause delays and to slow down in work zones as contractors will be in close proximity to travel lanes.

The closing is part of a years-long plan to widen Hwy. 20 about 7.5 miles from Samples Road in Cumming across the river to Peachtree Industrial Boulevard in Gwinnett. Once completed, the highway will be four lanes, two on each side.

The work has been broken down into three sections: the Chattahoochee River bridges; Samples Road to James Burgess Road; and work in Gwinnett County.

In April, a new bridge over the Chattahoochee River was opened on the roadway.

Buford Highway is not the only portion of the road to be widened.

A project to widen Canton Highway (Hwy. 20 west) from I-575 in Canton to Ga. 400 in Cumming is currently in the planning phase.

Among the largest of the proposed changes are the widening of the road to six lanes, the re-routing of certain roads and the removal of many left turns in favor of R-cuts, meaning traffic entering Hwy. 20 must turn right and then enter a U-turn.

The project will be bid out in portions in 2018 and 2019.

Previously, officials have said construction could start in 2022, with designs targeting growth projections for 2045.