Thousands of students at three Fulton County schools along Birmingham Highway will have to wait until at least 2029 for safer crossings, wider sidewalks, and relief from the morning traffic bottleneck that chokes the corridor every school day.
The City of Milton posted a formal response letter June 29, addressing 31 public comments on its planned pedestrian safety and congestion improvements along State Route 372/Birmingham Highway. The project stretches from the Heritage Walk roundabout north to Milton High School, passing Crabapple Crossing Elementary and Northwestern Middle School along the way.
The three schools sit within a mile of each other on the same two-lane state road. Northwestern Middle enrolls roughly 1,167 students; Milton High enrolls about 2,038. Combined with Crabapple Crossing Elementary, the corridor serves several thousand children on a stretch where, as Deputy Public Works Director Robert Dell-Ross told the City Council on Monday, November 3, 2025, "This circle being jammed is the number one problem that we are trying to solve, primarily from a public safety perspective."
Dell-Ross said at that meeting that congestion at the roundabout near Crabapple Crossing Elementary occurs every 20 to 30 minutes during morning school hours, creating conditions where emergency vehicles risk being unable to get through.
What the city plans to build
According to the June 29 response letter, signed by Engineering Project Manager Kathy Stallard, the project will include:
- Pedestrian signals and dedicated pedestrian crossings at Crabapple Crossing Elementary and Northwestern Middle School
- Wider sidewalks and 10-foot shared-use paths along SR 372, sized to accommodate golf carts and personal transportation vehicles
- New golf cart crossings at Milton Community Church and at the Kensington Farms Drive/School Drive traffic signal
- Longer turn lanes at school entrances to reduce backups of through traffic
- New curb and gutter connecting existing curb sections along the project frontage
The city is also working with a townhome community at Heritage Walk and SR 372 to create a pedestrian, bicycle, and golf cart route down Parkstead Lane that would connect directly to the new paths without forcing users through the roundabout.
A pedestrian overpass, requested by some residents, is outside the project's scope.
Timeline and cost
The project is funded through Milton's TSPLOST II sales tax. Dell-Ross told the council in November 2025 that construction expenditures are projected to exceed $1.7 million, with an additional $220,000 budgeted for pedestrian crossing lights near the roundabout. Fulton County Schools will help fund right-of-way acquisition but will not contribute to construction costs. The Georgia Department of Transportation will not contribute to construction costs either, though GDOT must approve all final designs because SR 372 is a state route.
Engineering is expected to take roughly two years. Right-of-way acquisition is projected to begin in 2028, with construction projected to begin in 2029, according to Dell-Ross's November 2025 presentation. The June 29 response letter does not update that timeline.
What comes next
The city's response letter states that if no significant design changes emerge, the project moves to right-of-way acquisition and final design. The project is managed by Steven Boockholdt at NV5, with GDOT Project Manager Royce Darnell Mitchell II coordinating state review.
Stallard wrote that if significant changes are made to the concept shown at the September 18, 2025, open house, the city will conduct additional public outreach through its website and Facebook page. No specific date for the next public comment opportunity has been announced.
