Westside I-285 shutdown begins as GDOT says full closure will speed up construction timeline

All lanes of I-285 between Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. and Cascade Rd. are temporarily closing Friday night as the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) continues a major reconstruction project on Atlanta's west side. 

Drivers will be detoured off I-285 at Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. and Cascade Road, with traffic routed onto local surface streets.

GDOT told CBS News Atlanta it considered different approaches before moving forward with the full closures, but those would have dragged out the project for several years.

"By doing it this way, we were able to cut the project down from six years to three years," said GDOT spokesperson Natalie Dale, "and we certainly understand that the disruption is inconvenient, but it will be a shorter amount of time. It also makes best use of taxpayer dollars. So we're really maximizing the work that we are doing, rebuilding this age stretch of roadway in the shortest amount of time possible for our contractors."

Business owners along the corridor are worried about what this weekend could look like.

Collette Brown is a hair stylist at Bond Salon Suites off Cascade Road, and said her concerns extend beyond traffic.

"I have a lot of elderly clients that really are not going to know where to go, and then I have my people for Saturday morning," Brown said. "They're going to be late, and it's going to inconvenience my whole day, and I'm probably going to lose money. I really wish they would do it, like at nighttime or something every other weekend at night and just don't close it for the whole three four days."

The closure begins Friday at 7 p.m. and lasts until Monday at 5 a.m.