S.R. 120 Loop was decommissioned in October 2007. This was done to facilitate the removal of mainline S.R. 120 from Roswell Street through Marietta. The result was that the southern part of the loop became the mainline for S.R. 120 and the northern part of the loop became S.R. 120 Alternate. As of November 2007, signs were still partially in place for S.R. 120 Loop. Prior to the decommissioning of the route, North and South Marietta Parkway formed a unique surface belt route around the City of Marietta designaged S.R. 120 Loop. The purpose for this route was basically to remove congestion out of the core of Marietta and to provide access to I-75 since no interchange was planned with S.R. 120 due to the heavy amount of existing buildings that would need to be razed to accomodate it. S.R. 120 Loop extended over nine miles intersecting mainline S.R. 120 east and west of the city. In other words, Roswell Road to the east and Whitlock Avenue to the west. While most of it is a surface street, the northeastern corner of the route (now S.R. 120 Alternate) is limited access between Merritt Road and Lower Roswell Road and includes a full diamond interchange with S.R. 120. S.R. 120 Loop also partially overlapped with S.R. 5 along its westermost portion in Downtown Marietta from Church Street on the north end to Atlanta Street on the south end. Today, S.R. 5 follows a greater portion of its successor, S.R. 120 Alternate, between U.S. 41 and Atlanta Street since S.R. 5 was also decommissioned along Church and Cherokee Street. S.R. 120 Loop has many points of interest near the route. These include the historic downtown of Marietta, White Water amusement park, Southern Polytechnic State University, Dobbins ARB and of course, the Big Chicken. HISTORY Construction of the first portion of S.R. 120 Loop coincided with the construction of I-75 in the 1960's. The first portion of the highway actually designated served as a temporary terminus of I-75. Signed in 1967, this segment ran along former Clay Street from the new I-75 interchange west to a couple blocks east of S.R. 3 (Atlanta Street, now S.R. 5). The odd termination was due to a proposed new route to S.R. 3 that would join further north. In 1969, work was completed to extend S.R. 120 Loop east of the new I-75 with the roadway ending at Roswell Road (S.R. 120). The Roswell Road overpass had already been completed in 1967, but was not completed north of it. However, part of the northern route of what was eventually S.R. 120 Loop was complete from I-75 to U.S. 41. That year, the interchange with the northern route replaced the southern interchange as the temporary terminus of I-75. In addition, S.R. 5 Spur, an extension of Powder Springs Street, was also proposed that year. S.R. 5 Spur would later become the westernmost part of the loop.
Initially, S.R. 120 Loop would only include the route south of S.R. 120. The northern loop apparently was planned as a replacement for Roswell Road and Roswell Street west of the eastern interchange. In 1971, S.R. 120 was moved to the new roadway between the interchange and U.S. 41 where it then followed U.S. 41 back to Roswell Street. This was quickly changed back to the way it was the following year, so S.R. 120 Loop was extended along the northern route to temporarily end at U.S. 41. The temporary end at U.S. 41 was also interesting in that it was a half-diamond interchange designed to accomodate a full diamond interchange over U.S. 41 when the roadway was later extended westward.
In 1979, almost a decade after the last portion of the highway was built, work was finally completed on the new connector to Clay Street. This included an tunnel underpass under busy Louisville & Nashville Railroad, which goes through downtown. The new road connected S.R. 120 Loop to Powder Springs Street (then S.R. 5) combined with a new depressed intersection with Atlanta Street. Likewise, the Powder Springs Street Extension was completed up to Polk Street. This project created better safety, but it also destroyed the connectivity of Powder Springs Road into downtown Marietta, thus S.R. 5 had to be relocated. S.R. 5 was then relocated under the new tunnel to Atlanta Street. The new Powder Springs Street extension to the north was then designated as S.R. 5 Spur from the S.R. 5 turn at the tunnel to Whitlock Avenue (S.R. 120). Meanwhile, S.R. 120 Loop mysteriously ended at Atlanta Street instead of connecting back to S.R. 120 along all the forementioned streets. This did not change, either, when S.R. 5 was relocated to Atlanta Street and S.R. 5 Spur decommissioned on June 14, 1983.
In 1985, the next stretch of S.R. 120 Loop was built. Most of this extension was along existing Page Street in lieu of a new road. The only new part actually constructed was a short stretch realigning Page Street to the existing S.R. 120 Loop between U.S. 41 and Fairground Street. The new extension brought S.R. 120 Loop west to end at Church Street (S.R. 5) at almost the same time S.R. 3 was moved off of the said street. This extension west began at the partial-diamond at U.S. 41 left from construction of I-75. However, the grade for the unbuilt overpass over U.S. 41 was not used in this extension. It was instead graded down and replaced with a signalized intersection. Nevertheless, the original ramps remain in place to this day. The construction of the connector to Page Street and subsequent takeover of Page Street as part of S.R. 120 Loop left only one remaining portion of S.R. 120 Loop unbuilt. This part extended from Page Street to the end of the Powder Springs Street extension at Polk Street. This final leg posed many problems, because many existing streets and buildings blocked the route including the Williams lumberyard, a railroad and an existing street. Completion of this stretch did not occur until 1989, which included an overpass for both Kennesaw Avenue and the L&N Railroad. The original western end of Page Street was also closed and relocated south to meet the new road. When this final portion was completed, several changes took place. First, S.R. 5 was moved completely off of Church Street between the new road and the 1979 tunnel (it already was partially in 1985) and relocated to the new route via Powder Springs Street Extension. Second, S.R. 120 Loop was now a complete loop. Third, the existing Page and Clay Streets were changed to new names. Page Street became part of North Marietta Parkway and Clay Street became part of South Marietta Parkway. The effect of this was that the route was all one name other than its orientation north or south of parent route S.R. 120.
After completion of the final leg of the loop, more improvements were made to S.R. 120 Loop. Completed in 1990, the south loop from U.S. 41 to Roswell Road was widened to six lanes in conjunction with a widening project on I-75. Much later in 2005, a new ramp to Waterman Street was completed on the south loop near Atlanta Street. While this was the last project to date, further work is planned on upgrading the existing Roswell Road interchange with a new ramp to alleviate the backed up traffic exiting northbound S.R. 120 Loop onto the highway. This work was not completed prior to the decommissioning, however. S.R. 120 LOOP PHOTO GALLERY
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