Rome and Floyd County will get more than $1.1 million in transportation funds for walking trail projects, David Doss said Tuesday.
Doss, who represents the 11th Congressional District on the State Transportation Board, announced $3.6 million in funding for the district through Transportation Enhancement Act grants.
Of that total, $400,000 will be used for the Redmond Trail project, which will eventually link John Davenport Drive to the area near the old Florida Rock quarry off Redmond Circle.
County Manager Kevin Poe said the money will purchase part of an abandoned rail line.
“We felt that was important because we needed to secure the funding for that purchase pretty quick,” Poe said. “Eventually we’re trying to link the downtown area to the Berry College area and have a trail network all across the county.”
Another $100,000 will be used for a trailway system in Cave Spring, Doss said.
Also, Doss said, another $600,000 will be transferred from District 9 to District 11 as part of the Riverwalk Project that goes by The Forum in downtown Rome.
That project would run under the Fifth Avenue bridge and link the riverwalk at The Forum with the segment at Sixth Avenue.
That money is not part of the funds Doss announced Tuesday. “My indication is that money will be awarded very soon,” he said. “Mike Evans (DOT board chairman and 9th District representative) looked closely at this project and concurred that it’s a worthwhile endeavor.”
Bartow County received $200,000 to be used for a downtown streetscape project in Adairsville and $500,000 to refurbish Milam’s Bridge in Euharlee.
Chattooga County got $275,000 for preservation work on classic rail cars in its city park improvements.
The rest of the money went to projects in Cobb and Haralson counties.
In the 9th District, Evans approved $200,000 for the historic Fort Wayne renovation project in Gordon County and another $200,000 for a streetscape project in Fairmount. Gordon is split between the 9th and the 11th districts.
Plans are in the works to build an access road from Ga. 136 into the Fort Wayne site in Resaca and 9,000 feet of pedestrian trails through the Civil War era site.
Click here for more information about the project.
Fairmount Mayor Harry Pierce said the streetscape project will include sidewalks, streetlights and a bike lane along U.S. 411 from Ga. 53 West to Ga. 53 East. The project also includes enhancements at Tate Park in downtown Fairmount.
Evans also has approved $250,000 for Catoosa County for several improvements to downtown Ringgold.
Click here for more information about the project.
Among the possible additions are a sidewalk connecting the Depot with the City Hall parking areas, a sidewalk along General Cleburne Street with parking, improvements to the sidewalks on Nashville, LaFayette and Tennessee streets.
Doss said a more formal announcement with more details will be made in the next week.
Doss said it’s a difficult process for DOT board members to allocate money because, as the old saying goes, you can’t please all the people all the time.
“It’s tough because everyone’s projects are important to their own areas,” Doss said. “But I’ve tried to give meaningful amounts to projects, even though it’s less than the grant requests, so that a lot of things can get done.”
Doss said a committee rates grant requests according to importance and makes sure they are eligible for federal funds.
The committee includes historians, engineers and environmental experts, and they rate projects according to their estimation of their importance.
“Cities and counties know how the game is played, so to speak,” Doss said. “I’m sure they ask for a little more than is actually needed, and the committee looks at things according to worthiness. We try to meet the requests the best we can.”
Doss said the cash for the approved projects should be immediately available for municipalities to begin work.
“We only had about $4 million to spend over a pretty big area,” Doss said. “But I think Floyd County fared pretty well.”
Doss added the DOT will overhaul its project selection process this year, attempting to remove a lot of the local politics.
“Our department is in a major prioritization process right now to validate or invalidate every project,” Doss said. “It’s a monumental undertaking. We have a huge number of projects on the books, and some of them have been there forever.
“But with the limited resources we have as a state to address transportation needs, we had to have prioritization,” he said. “This will be a very painful process statewide, and the political process has gotten a lot of things on the books in the first place.
“Hopefully this reorganization will take the politics out and put things on a cost-benefit basis.”
