Several roads in Newton County will be repaired or resurfaced this summer, and projects on Airport, Crowell, Jack Neely and Mote roads will require the most intense work.
The Newton County Board of Commissioners last week approved a $382,572 contract with Pittman Construction to widen and resurface portions of Crowell and Jack Neely roads in front of the new Newton High School, in preparation for school buses and increased traffic in the fall.
The project will be paid for using SPLOST funds, and originally $1 million was set aside for the work; the unused $600,000 will be used on other roads project on the 2011 SPLOST list.
The existing northbound center turn lane will be extended on Crowell Road to accommodate school buses turning into the new school entrance and get them out of the travel lane to prevent traffic backups, particularly in the morning, said county engineer Tom Garrett.
A turn lane also will be added to Jack Neely Road to allow entrance to the school on that side as well.
Garrett said the work should be mostly completed before school begins, while some minor work may wrap up after that point.
Another school project that will be completed this summer is the widening and resurfacing of Airport Road in front of Flint Hill Elementary, between Poole Booth Road and Ga. Highway 142, to allow school buses to pass each other more easily.
In addition, several roads will be resurfaced as part of the state’s annual resurfacing program for counties, including (the score of the roads is in parenthesis; the lower the score the worse the condition of the road):
• Jack Neely from Windsong Drive to Fairview Road (24)
• McGiboney Road from Ga. Highway 162 to Brown Bridge Road (39)
• Malcom Road (patching only) Ga. Highway 36 to the roads’ end (52)
• Oak Hill Road from Ga. Highway 212 to Ga. Highway 20 (47)
• Mote Road from Ga. Highway 162 to Lower River (35)
• Dixie Road from Henderson Mill Road to CR 213 (61).
Mote Road will have the most intense work, as the road is being rebuilt. Pittman Construction, which won the contract to do the work, will work on one half of the road at a time to allow traffic to continue to flow.
Pittman will remove all of the asphalt on Mote Road, treat the sub-base of the road and then come back and pave it, Garrett said. He said the process might alarm some residents, because the pavement is completely removed, but he assured people that it will be repaved. The project will take several days, he said.
Garrett said the contract to patch and repave those roads was around $1 million; the county bid out the work, but the state will cover the ultimate costs.
