 |
 |
Commissioner Jeff Rader
Manuel J. Maloof Center
1300 Commerce Drive
5th Floor
Decatur, GA 30030
(404) 371-2863
jrader@co.dekalb.ga.us
|
|
|
| Public Works Update |
| Feb 24, 2006 |
Construction Projects:
Work is proceeding on the new sidewalk construction projects in the 2006 Transportation Bond, although the rainy and cold weather has slowed work significantly.
DeKalb Industrial Way, on the east side, from Lawrenceville Highway to North Decatur Road; is 96% complete; there are some utility adjustments left, and it should be completed by March 11, 2006.
Roads & Drainage crews are 100% complete with the new sidewalk on LaVista Road from the Fulton County line going east about 3,300 feet.
Buford Highway sidewalks and safety improvements, from Shallowford Terrace in Chamblee to I-285 in Doraville, are 25% complete; the contractor is about three-quarters complete with driveway replacements on the north side of the roadway, and has started on sidewalk and street light conduit installation; they are making good progress towards the substantial completion date of July 31, 2006.
Flowers Road bridge replacement at North Fork Peachtree Creek, near Mercer University, was awarded to Rogers Bridge Company for about $1.86 million. Bell South has about six months of facility relocations near the bridge, before the roadway will be closed and the bridge replaced. The contract allows for a six-month road closure, while the bridge is replaced; that will probably not start until around July 2006; with substantial completion of the project by early 2007; this will require a contract extension from its original October 31, 2006, date, due to the Bell South time required for relocations. But at least the roadway will remain open to traffic until Bell South's work is completed.
The first two projects in the Governor's Fast Forward signal synchronization program for DeKalb County are underway: a $350,000 project to upgrade the signal system on Panola Road, and a $800,000 project to upgrade the signals on Briarcliff Road (S.R. 42); the contract completion date for these projects is April 30, 2006. The County's fiber optics contractor is doing the fiber interconnections required for these two projects.
Other DOT-funded projects on schedule to bid in 2006:
Lawrenceville Highway at I-285 interchange reconstruction has been placed on the May 2006 letting schedule by GDOT; this project is in the final stages of the right-of-way phase.
Ponce de Leon Avenue at Hambrick, and Ponce de Leon Avenue at McLendon; turn lane construction and signal upgrades to improve traffic safety and efficiency; all the necessary rights-of-way have been acquired by the County except for 3 parcels of CSX Railroad right-of-way that will be on the February 28 Board agenda for condemnation approval. The projects are both currently on schedule to bid by GDOT in May 2006.
GDOT announced the Transportation Enhancement grant decisions for 2006-7; $4.2 million in federal funds were awarded to projects in DeKalb County, including awards for phase 6 of the Stone Mountain trail (between Glendale Road and Erskine Road in Clarkston), bike/ped improvements along Ponce de Leon in Deepdene Park, bike/ped improvements on Rockbridge Road in Pine Lake, phase 3 of the South River trail (a three-mile section of the DeKalb "beltline" PATH project), and some pedestrian streetscape projects in City of Decatur.
The Roads & Drainage storm water crews in the 4th Quarter of 2005 reduced the backlog of high-priority drainage system repairs from 111 projects to 63 projects, with excellent productivity in the 4th quarter; among the locations repaired were a cave-in and pipe replacement on Gray Hawk Way; a pipe liner on West Nancy Creek Drive; a cave-in on Rockbough Drive; a headwall repair on Briarglade Way; a shoulder endangering the roadway on Hickory Road; a pipe liner on Hidden Acres Drive; pipe replacement on Glensford Drive; a shoulder endangering the roadway on Burk Drive; a cave-in on Terri Lynn Court; a cave-in on Woodrow Way; a cave-in on Colman Drive; a pipe repair on Pine Ridge Way; a cave-in on Smoke Rise Drive; and a pipe repair on Corners Circle. In the first few weeks of 2006, they completed rehabilitation of a large double-barrel arch culvert at 600 Hambrick Road, a pipe liner at 182 Fairlane Drive, a pipe liner at 4150 Pine Valley Road, repaired a cave-in at East Brookhaven Drive, and repaired rip rap along a stream at 1978 Castleway Lane.
The Roads & Drainage staff, with technical assistance from the Green Space program real estate acquisition specialists, met with the Jackson Square Condominum owners on Wednesday, January 25, 2006, to discuss the current status and upcoming processes for the buyout of the 32 flood-prone units in that complex. The current timetable calls for completing the acquisitions by October 2006, under the terms of our grants from FEMA and GEMA. This project is unusually complicated, because of the condominum arrangements regarding the land and common area involved in the acquisition, and the need to secure releases from all the owners of other units in the complex for us to complete the floodplain buyouts. The County staff, consultants, and homeowner representatives have done an excellent job of working with legal counsel and with each other to map out and start forward through this complicated acquisition process.
On the other current flood-prone buyout grant project, in Drew Valley neighborhood, Roads & Drainage staff have received 14 of the 15 voluntary participation letters from the 15 eligible properties in that grant; so that paperwork should be ready to send to GEMA soon, allowing us to start on the title searches, appraisals, and other due diligence needed to start the buyout process.
Customer Service and Community Outreach:
The pilot process for the new 311 call center is moving along; Sanitation, Roads & Drainage and Transportation Divisions have all been involved in the "conference room" pilot tests for work flows and process mapping, and will be ready to go with the estimated May 2006 trial run for routing customer calls to the call center staff for processing. This new centralized customer number will make it much easier to ensure that customer requests get to the right person, and that timely response is logged and communicated back.
The Communications Team participated in the "Introduce a Girl to Engineering" event at Georgia Tech on Saturday, February 18, for National Engineers' Week, to encourage female middle school students to consider a career in engineering. Nationally, fewer students are pursuing this important career, and our professional engineers in the transportation, traffic, storm water management and related civil engineering fields need relief one of these days! Thanks to Sylvia Smith, Patrece Keeter, Shirley Richardson, Andrew Sullivan and Ricky Ammons for participating in that event.
Efficiency:
The GDOT State Aid office informed Roads & Drainage that DeKalb County will have 23 miles of resurfacing funded by LARP in the FY 2007 program; in the FY 2006 program, we had about 25 miles funded. Although the Governor is proposing to double the amount of state funding available for LARP, GDOT is projecting that the bid prices will be nearly double previous years' bids, eating up the additional funding just to maintain similar levels of resurfacing! Since we currently have a backlog of more than 300 miles of the 2,000 miles of County roads which warrant resurfacing soon, this is a discouraging trend.
Environmental Quality:
The new subscription curbside recycling program now has over 4,380 households signed up, and has diverted more than 460 tons of waste from being landfilled. |
|
|
