Frustrating backups on Verona Road will be in the past, and it will be easier for local traffic to access businesses and other destinations while creating a better, safer flow for highway traffic.

Those are highlights of one the largest road construction projects in Dane County history.

Preliminary work on the $175 million project will begin next year with the bulk of the work starting in 2014 and finishing in about 2020.

"The safety, capacity and overall poor condition of Verona Road — those are the three main elements of why," said Mark Vesperman, the state Department of Transportation's manager for the project. "It's one of the bigger projects we've had."

Details will be discussed Thursday at a public information meeting at the Fitchburg Public Library. Residents will be able to vote on whether they want noise walls, some 27 feet high, separating their homes from the Beltline or Verona Road.

Five walls are proposed at a cost of $4.7 million. The largest, at 2,660 feet long, would stretch from Raymond Road to Williamsburg Way.