Roads in the Mainstreet subdivision are crumbling under the strain of the heavy traffic detoured through the community since September’s floods damaged a bridge on Redan Road.

Residents say traffic has doubled or tripled on streets in the 1,164-home planned community, with MARTA buses and trucks part of the new entourage.

Fresh patches of asphalt over a string of potholes on Martin Road are already breaking apart and there’s an ever-widening crater near the subdivision’s exit onto South Hairston Road.

Representatives of area neighborhood associations will discuss detour-related concerns at their next regular meeting at Mainstreet’s clubhouse in late January, said Nadine Rivers-Johnson, a 15-year Mainstreet resident and its community association liaison.

“We realize that Mainstreet is centrally located among several subdivisions, but this has created an inordinate amount of traffic,” she said. “We’ve also seen an upswing in some types of petty crimes ... and additional loitering in the area.”

It all began with the Sept. 21-22 rainstorms that damaged homes, roads and bridges across North Georgia.

One of those damaged bridges was on Redan Road over Barbashela Creek, between Redan High School and South Hairston Road.

Georgia Department of Transportation officials are overseeing the replacement of the bridge, which will cost a little more than $1 million in federal highway emergency funds. Massana Construction Inc. of Tyrone was awarded the contract and the work must be finished by March 30 to meet funding guidelines, said Crystal Paulk-Buchanan, assistant spokeswoman for the DOT.

Rivers-Johnson said residents want to see the detour roads and some feeder roads in Mainstreet repaved or at least restored to their previous condition once the detour has ended.

They’re also concerned that a small bridge over a creek within their subdivision on Mainstreet Park Drive is becoming unsafe.

Carl Glover, DeKalb County’s director of roads and drainage, said the county is patching potholes in the subdivision and will evaluate the roads for further needs after the detour has ended.

He said Mainstreet’s bridge, which is evaluated annually, is holding up structurally.

“That bridge is in decent shape,” he said. “It’s kind of rough from the standpoint of the topping on it.”

Glover said everything will be brought “back to normal” once the bridge is replaced.

Some fear that businesses near the detour that were already struggling before September may never see “normal” again.

Calvin Sims, president of the Chapman Mill/Redan Park homeowners association and chair of the DeKalb branch NAACP economic development committee, has been talking to businesses along the Redan/Hairston corridor. He said the detour is hitting them hard.

“I’m concerned about the economic damage that this could do, that they might not be able to recover from, especially with the downturn that we’re experiencing anyway,” Sims said.

The Redan Kroger has lost at least $60,000 a week in business since the detour started, according to store co-manager Horace Pullin. This translates into fluctuating cuts in hours for some of the store’s close to 100 employees, he said.

Some people on the other side of the roadblock from Kroger don’t want to drive through Mainstreet to get there, especially during rush hour, he said.

“They might do it once because they got stuck in it but they won’t do it again,” he said. “The Covington Highway store is picking up a lot of business.”

The Redan Kroger is trying to hold onto those customers by trying to keep the store in good condition, Pullin said.

“If they have to maneuver to get here, we want them to get what they were looking for,” he said.