MTO: Panel OKs two roads projects

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Panel OKs two roads projects

By Randall Savage
The Macon Telegraph

Two major road projects - construction of the Montpelier Stadium Connector and improvements to Northside Drive - could be completed next year under action taken Thursday.

The technical advisory committee of the $300 million city-county road improvement program voted to issue contracts on both projects. The program's executive committee and the Bibb County Commission still have to sign off on the contracts, which call for the stadium connector to be completed by May 1 and the Northside Drive improvements to be finished seven months later.

About $250,000 has been earmarked for the connector, a project not initially part of the voter-approved road program but pushed by officials at Mercer University. The connector would run from the intersection of Winship Street and Carling Avenue past Edgewood Drive to Johnson and Montpelier avenues.

Community activist Michael Ryan, who owns the home closest to the connector, was not at the meeting and said later he was not aware that the project was on the committee's agenda.

"I learned about it this morning, 10 minutes before the meeting," Ryan said.

He said he was not surprised that the proposal zipped through the committee.

"They never address issues that I bring up," he said. "When I ask them about environmental issues and about saving trees and historical buildings and why they're using public funds to build a road through private property, they never respond. They don't even listen to it."

The committee voted to award a contract for the $1.3 million improvements on Northside Drive from its intersection with Wesleyan Drive to Rivioli Drive. The project includes adding turn lanes, resurfacing the road and putting a sidewalk on the northern side of the road.

The committee reaffirmed its earlier approval to construct three lanes on Forest Hill Road from Northside Drive to Wimbish Road. The $3.5 million proposal would also provide curbs and a sidewalk on the eastern side of the road.

The committee approved $335,037 for design work on the proposed intersection of Interstate 16 and Weaver Road in eastern Bibb County, but delayed action on proposed improvements on Houston Avenue until officials review the project and discuss it with business owners along the route.

Greg Schneider, senior historian for Moreland Altobelli Associates, Inc., the engineering firm that oversees the road project, will discuss street widening and Macon's downtown historic district with state officials on Oct. 13.

Schneider arranged a meeting with Mark R. Edwards, director of the Historic Preservation Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, after Edwards indicated the historic district could be jeopardized if proposed street widening damages walks, yards, curbs and trees in College Hill.

Edwards made the remarks in a letter to Mayor Jim Marshall, which Edwards wrote after several Macon residents told Edwards they were concerned about the effect proposed street improvements would have on National Register or National Historic Landmark of properties.

Earlier this month, the advisory committee put the College Street widening project on hold pending a review of how the intersections of Georgia and Washington avenues would be affected.

Road program officials will take maps, drawings and other details of the proposed widening when they meet with Edwards at 1:30 p.m. Oct. 13 in Edwards' Atlanta office, Schneider said.