With more than 1,300 housing units planned around Burkhalter Road, Cawana Road and connecting roads in Statesboro’s recently annexed areas, and with the Highway 67-Burkhalter intersection already getting a Level of Service grade of “F,” city officials are planning for a series of road improvements. County officials are offering to collaborate on a plan.
Concerns about heavily trafficked roads in this area were first mentioned during Tuesday’s Bulloch County’s 8:30 a.m. Board of Commissioners meeting. Then during the city’s 3 p.m. mayor and council work session that preceded the 5:30 p.m. City Council meeting, Assistant City Manager Jason Boyles presented observations about the current status of intersections in this growth area outside the southeastern bend of the Veterans Memorial Parkway bypass. He then set out the ideas for planned, or at least proposed, improvements.
The city’s Planning and Development Office estimated that 1,342 housing units may be built over the next five years in the sprawling area from S&S Railroad Bed Road around to Georgia Highway 67 with Burkhalter and Cawana Roads being the highly trafficked core and Herman Rushing Road the most recently annexed area. Developments shown in red on a map in his slideshow included S&S Townhomes with 46 units, Cawana Row with 71 units, Cawana Bend with 28, Holly Oaks with 154 units, The Outpost, with 206, “Burkhalter Intersection 1” with 240, and across Burkhalter Road to the southeast, “Burkhalter Intersection 2” with 399 units, and the recently annexed “Herman Rushing Townhome” complex with 198 units.
“Development is also anticipated by the county on multiple properties in the area that have not been annexed,” Boyles noted.
He also mentioned Brannen Street – which connects this perimeter area to commercial centers and residential developments farther in town – as contributing to the traffic flow.
Shown in green on the map, the city’s proposed traffic projects start on the north end with two roundabouts, one on Brannen Street at Cawana Road and another on S&S Railroad Bed Road at its Cawana Road intersection. Other proposed improvements are to the southeast on the Burkhalter Road-Harville Road corridor. These include the installation of a roundabout at the Cawana Road-Burkhalter Road intersection and the widening of Burkhalter Road from Herman Rushing Road to Georgia Highway (AKA State Route) 67. In fact, the map continues the broad, green line for a widened Burkhalter Road across Highway 67, out of the city limits to the existing county roundabout that gives drivers the choice of continuing southwestward on either Langston Chapel Road or Harville Road.
Boyles referred to traffic impact studies completed in 2024, not by the city or a city-contracted firm, but at the expense of developers of the subdivision and townhome projects, as required in some cases by the city on recommendations from the Planning and Development staff. The city itself has not done such a study.
“However, there have been multiple traffic studies on Burkhalter and Cawana Roads by the developers of the residential properties, many of which are under the same lead engineering firm,” Boyles explained in a reply email Wednesday. “Wilburn and Maldino (Traffic Engineering Consultants) prepared most of the studies and they have updated their studies as additional developments have moved forward.”
But Southeastern Engineering prepared the study for Cawana Bend Townhomes, he noted.
“City and County engineering staff have reviewed each of the studies for approval,” Boyles wrote.
Intersection graded ‘F’
A study for the State Route 67-Burkhalter Road intersection found that the average delay – the time that drivers remained stopped before being able to proceed – was 87 seconds The current Level of Service rating for the intersection during the peak afternoon to evening traffic hour, as determined by engineers who did the study, was an “F.”
“Which is failing,” Boyles confirmed.
If no roadway improvements are made, the average delay at the intersection would be expected to increase to 202 seconds after all of those new homes are built, he reported. That means drivers and their passengers would on average be waiting a little more than 3 minutes and 20 seconds for a traffic signal to go green or for a break in traffic to allow a turn.
Adding a left-turn lane and a right-turn lane on Burkhalter Road westbound, a right-turn lane on Harville Road eastbound, and a right-turn lane on Highway 67 northbound and southbound would improve the intersection’s Level of Service to a “D,” with 40 seconds of delay after build-out of the residential developments, Boyles said on the basis of a traffic study.
Meanwhile, the Cawana Road intersection with Burkhalter Road currently rates a “C” Level of Service, but that is projected to deteriorate to an “F” after all the housing developments are built out, if there are no road improvements, he reported. If a roundabout is added at that intersection, it is expected to function at level “B” after the developments are built out, Boyles reported.
Scheduling projects
Roundabouts for Cawana Road at Brannen Street and Cawana Road at S&S Railroad Bed Road are “currently in the design phase,” but right of way acquisition has not begun. The city’s fiscal year 2026 budget has $3.3 million earmarked for these, with construction estimated to begin in spring 2026 and be completed summer 2027. Both of those intersections are partially on county right of way, but approximately 80% of the Cawana Road right of way is in the city, he said.
City staff is currently developing a request for proposals for the design of a roundabout for Cawana Road at Burkhalter Road. The city has just $250,000 in the fiscal 2026 budget for this project but $2.5 million in its capital improvements budget for fiscal 2028. Design work should begin this fall and right of way acquisition in spring 2027 for construction in fiscal 2028 (which means July 1, 2027-June 30, 2028). The Cawana-Burkhalter intersection is currently on Bulloch County right of way, so “project coordination with Bulloch County will be required,” a frame of the slideshow stated.
The Burkhalter Road widening would seem like the largest project, but the currently budgeted amount is almost identical to that for the roundabout. In fact, the Burkhalter Road-Cawana Roundabout will need to be completed with the Burkhalter widening, Boyles said. So they are like different aspects of the same overall project.
City staff is also drafting a request for proposals for the design of the road widening project, with $300,000 in the budget for fiscal 2026. Then $2.5 million is slated for the fiscal 2027 budget, with construction projected to begin in spring 2027 for completion summer 2028.
Of the 3,550 feet of Burkhalter Road from Herman Rushing Road to Highway 67, about 1,640 feet is in the city and 1,940 outside the city on county right of way.
So, “Project coordination and cost sharing with Bulloch County will be required,” the city’s summary stated.
None of these things were action items during the City Council’s late afternoon meeting, except that the council did unanimously adopt the overall fiscal year 2026 city budget, as previously proposed.
County ‘reaching out’
That morning in the final moments of the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners meeting, Chairman David Bennett also spoke of the need to make improvements in what he called “the Burkhalter-Harville-Langston Chapel Road Corridor,” in coordination with the city.
“There are several intersections in there, particularly the one there at Highway 67 … that is a constant problem,” he said. “There’s a lot of growth that’s coming through that area right there …, and what we would like to do is start a master plan for how do you fix all of the problems there between, essentially Highway 24 and 301 on that corridor of roads as it changes names about three times,” Bennett said.
“What we would really like to do is reach out to the city and collaboratively come up with a solution for all of the issues …,” he continued, “and so we will be reaching out to the city and try to come up with a plan that we can develop together that’s beneficial for everyone in the county so that it’s not only easier to travel in that part of town but so we can get fire and EMS where they need to go.”
