City Council approves road grant program proposal
The Madison City Council passed a resolution during a special-called meeting Wednesday night that would enable the city to apply for funding for Count Line Road.
Gov. Robert Bentley recently announced an initiative to further assist cities and counties address their urgent transportation infrastructure needs. The Alabama Transportation Rehabilitation and Improvement Program (ATRIP) is a $200 to $300 million program and will have three application periods. Federal funds would pay 80 percent of construction costs, while local governments would pay 20 percent of construction costs, in addition to any required utility, geotechnical and preliminary engineering costs.
“The reason I’m pushing this project is to avoid what happened on Hughes Road where the growth happened so quickly, we didn’t have time to fix it,” said Director of Engineering Gary Chynoweth. “We are going to begin to get a big change in traffic pattern on County Line Road and it’s going to be pretty dynamic.”
Chynoweth said traffic has increased on Palmer and Dock Murphy roads. “What we’re trying to do is get County Line is not just resurfaced, but improved for all traffic.”
The project approved for funding will be announced on November, but projects must be able to be let to contract by ALDOT on Dec. 2, 2013)
“We have about 18,000 to 20,000 cars a day on County Line and that’s about to increase when school and interstate connection comes in,” he stated. “One of the problems with that road is that it was built in phases through the years. Each phase had a different cross section. What was OK 30 years ago doesn’t meet the requirements of today.”
Plans for County Line include corridors for bicyclists and pedestrians and a traffic signal at Heritage Elementary School (one for the James Clemens High is already being installed) and lane-widening.
“There’s a lot of things we have to look at,” Chynoweth said. “There’s 1,500 acres of undeveloped land adjoining County Line Road, 60 percent is Madison, 40 percent is Huntsville. We’re trying to draw lines responsibly and we want to take the lead on the project.” He said the city has been in communication with Huntsville’s city leaders and traffic engineers.
