Kingsport ready to roll out $14 million in local road blitz
KINGSPORT ‚¬ Kingsport is ready to roll out the orange traffic barrels in the coming 12 months, as the city prepares a massive $14 million road improvement blitz, with projects ranging from resurfacing to reconstruction to completely new routings.
The Board of Mayor and Aldermen has demonstrated its commitment to the health of the community by not only reinvesting in our basic road infrastructure, but also renewing a strong focus on community health by investing in safe mobility pathways for pedestrians and bicyclists, City Manager John Campbell said Friday.
With federal and state approval finally awarded, Kingsport is the first city in Tennessee authorized to move ahead with letting $2.2 million in bids under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Campbell said.
Due to mandates for shovel-ready projects, all of this work will fall into the resurfacing category, with work expected to begin this fall or early next year.
| Projects include resurfacing of: | |
| 1.39 miles of Center Street from Fort Henry Drive to Memorial Boulevard | |
| 1.78 miles of Eastman Road from Stone Drive to Lincoln Street | |
| .76 miles of Clinchfield Street from Center Street to Stone Drive | |
| 1.25 miles of Bloomingdale Pike form Stone Drive to Gravely Road | |
| 2.39 miles of Orebank Road from Memorial Boulevard to Lamberth Street |
It takes a good bit of time to get a road project moving, considering state and federal regulation, right-of-way acquisition and design times, Campbell said. Coupled with the delays in external approval for the ARRA projects, our residents will see a good deal of work underway throughout this fall and next year as opposed to being spread out a little farther apart.
But the bottom line is that we are committed to the upkeep and improvement of our road network. These investments will pay off in many ways, creating jobs and ensuring the safe, efficient movement of goods and people.
In locally funded projects, bids have been opened on the Gibson Mill Road Phase 3 project from Stone Drive to Millpond Street, with Thomas Construction winning the $1.56 million construction bid. This project is contracted for completion by April 2010, and came in $600,000 less than the estimated budget.
When complete, the project will provide additional turn lanes at the Stone Drive and Gibson Mill intersection, deploy a new roundabout near the old location of the Boys and Girls Club and construct a new three-lane road east of the roundabout.
In the Cooks Valley area, Thomas Construction Co. has also been awarded a $671,372 bid to improve 2,216 feet of Harbor Chapel Road between Skyline Drive and Cooks Valley Road, with expected completion by July 2010.
Harbor Chapel improvements, to be constructed in several phases, are designed to provide safer travel conditions, including widened shoulders, improved intersections with Cooks Valley and Harbor Springs roads, and installing deceleration/turn lanes.
In addition, this project will work to make Harbor Chapel more pedestrian friendly with installation of an 8-bart wide pedestrian mobility path for biking and walking.
Local dollars will also be at work with a $500,000 upgrade of the Center Street intersection with Clinchfield Street, providing signal and turn lane improvements. City staff will perform about $75,000 of the work on traffic signal upgrades.
Locally-funded repaving is also on tap, with a $428,665 bid awarded earlier in October to APAC-Harrison to perform resurfacing work on Bridgewater Lane, Bowater Drive, Rivers Edge Drive, Rivers Edge Court, Rivers Edge Place, Longreen Road, Bonaire Road, Amersham Road, Birchwood Road, Burgh Heath Drive, Huntington Court, Clandon Drive, Fleetwood Drive, Eastley Court, Glenbrook Drive, Merrywood Avenue. Construction timeframe is 30 days, with work expected to begin in November.
Resurfacing projects scheduled for early in the year were delayed until this fall to avoid a major spike in asphalt prices, with the delay resulting in a 50 percent cost savings for taxpayers, allowing more lane miles to be repaved.
Other area road projects that are currently funded and approaching the bid phase include $1.6 million in improvements to Rock Spring Road.
Rock Springs will have shoulders added between Cox Hollow Road and Edinburgh Channel Road, while city contractors will also install a multi-use mobility path.
As part of this project, especially curvy portions of the road will be improved to meet design standards, but not eliminated entirely. This project will be phased, with construction expected to begin next summer.
And, the Tennessee Department of Transportation has begun initial planning work to consider potential improvements to State Route 347 in the Rock Springs area.
Another major project on tap for April through August 2010 is safety improvements to the intersection of Stone Drive, Cleek Road, and New Beasonwell Road.
Under this $800,000 project, Cleek Road will be realigned to match up better with New Beasonwell Road on the opposite side of East Stone Drive, while also adding turn lanes and reducing the curvature of Cleek Road near Stone Drive.
Back downtown, motorists will soon applaud the removal of a frequent bottleneck, as work is expected to begin March 2010 on the construction of a new roundabout at the intersection of Center Street, Industry Drive and Netherland Inn Road.
The new roundabout will be sized to permit semi-truck traffic, and will serve as both a safety improvement project and a gateway to the RiverWalk district. Property acquisition is underway on this $1 million project, with construction slated for March 2010.
Should the Board of Mayor and Aldermen approve an additional $6 million in road bonds next week, this funding would allow the completion of the Gibson Mill project, construction of Phase 2 of Cleek Road improvements and implement a fix to a serious sight-distance problem on Netherland Inn Road at the intersection with Lilac Street.
The final phase of Gibson Mill would widen the road to three lanes to Robertson Street, replace sidewalks, and resurface the road from Robertson up to the Watauga Street roundabout.
Gibson Mill Phase IV also requires construction of a new bridge over Reedy Creek, which will be raised to allow the Greenbelt to travel underneath. Currently, Greenbelt users must cross traffic on the Gibson Mill roadway.
Broad Street would also be closed as part of this project between Gibson Mill and Park Drive.
The final phase of Gibson Mill is expected to cost $3.1 million, with $600,000 already available for the project.
The second phase of Cleek Road would involve the reconstruction of Cleek from near Stone Drive all the way up to Orebank Road, widening to provide shoulders, removing a switchback curve near Orebank, softening the grade up the bluff, and installing a new multi-use mobility path. This project is estimated to cost $3 million, with construction possible as early as the fall of 2010.
The last project under consideration by the BMA for 2010 also dovetails with the RiverWalk district plan by realigning Netherland Inn road near Lilac, providing a 12 bart front yard for the Inn and eliminating the need for motorists to attempt to peer through the Netherland Inn stairs in order to judge oncoming traffic. Projected cost for this project is approximately $500,000.
