The Georgia Department of Transportation and Forsyth County could be moving some other funding around to pay for a project to widen McGinnis Ferry Road.

At a work session on Tuesday, Forsyth County Commissioners heard an update, but took no action, on the joint project between the county, the cities of Johns Creek and Alpharetta and GDOT. 

County Manager Eric Johnson said GDOT officials have asked the county to look into applying for the state's Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant (LMIG) funding for $2 million to go toward a widening project on Hwy. 369.

Forsyth County would use the funds to move $2 million planned for 369 to the McGinnis Ferry project. Under the revised plan, GDOT would also move $10 million in county funding from a new Ga. 400 interchange project on McGinnis Ferry to the road widening project. 

Johnson said GDOT would also ask the two cities to put more funding into the project and wanted to see an increase in the amount for the project coming from Forsyth.

“The exact amount won't be known until we get better information on what it actually costs to acquire right of way, how much each of those two cities are going to put in and, obviously, when we work a project," Johnson said. "Only then do we know the full exposure to construction costs, but they want to see this project done."

At Tuesday’s meeting, Johnson said both cities had currently committed about $5.9 million for the project. 

The discussions over widening the road have been ongoing for years, and in a previous plan, Forsyth would have paid $18 million for the project, the state would have contributed about $10 million and Alpharetta and Johns Creek would have contributed about $9 million each.

In a more recent proposal from Johns Creek, discussed by commissioners last year, the project would be split into two parts, widening from Sergeant Road to 7 Oaks Parkway and widening from Sargent Road to Meadows Creek Drive.

The Sargent to 7 Oaks phase would be about 0.7 miles and would cost $95,000 for design, $1.5 million for right-of-way acquisitions, $120,000 for relocation of utilities, $1.5 million for mitigation and construction of $1.85 million for an estimated total of $5.1 million.

In comparison, the phase from Sargent to Meadows Creek would be about 0.5 miles and cost $68,000 for design, $1 million for right-of-way, $100,000 for utilities, $1.5 million for mitigation and $700,000 for construction, with a total of $3.4 million.