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Although Deputy Town Manager Roe
O’Donnell had submitted the two projects
– the North White Street sidewalk and
the South Main Street widening – as
alternatives, the Wake Forest
commissioners voted Tuesday night to do
both.
They approved a contract for
$39,850 with Appian Consulting Engineers
in Rocky Mount to design the sidewalk
and drainage improvements on the east
side of North White from East Juniper
Avenue to the entrance to Sedgefield
subdivision just north of Flaherty Park.
Construction money will come from the
next sale of the bonds approved in 2005.
They also instructed the
town staff to begin the design to widen
South Main to three lanes – two travel
lanes and a turn lane – from Forbes Road
to Forestville Road. O’Donnell estimates
it will cost about $1.1 million to
rebuild the road.
“Chip (Russell, planning
director) and I feel the widening would
require very little right-of-way
acquisition,” O’Donnell said. We have
sixty or sixty-five feet there that
should be able to accommodate a
three-lane road.”
“We had also talked about
doing improvements to Ligon Mill Road
where it connects to South Main,” Mayor
Vivian Jones said. “Which one of these
projects would be the most beneficial?”
O’Donnell said the two are
“probably equally important, but you
would get more benefit from improving
the intersection. My pick would be the
Ligon Mill widening.”
Although O’Donnell said it
would cost “a few hundred thousand” to
widen the intersection, Russell said the
project should widen the road to at
least the first entrance drive. “The X
factor of Ligon Mill is right-of-way,”
which must be purchased.”
“I keep feeling South Main
is not finished,” Commissioner Margaret
Stinnett said.
“How much money are we
spending on the Franklin Street
roundabouts?” she asked. “For a road
that’s not heavily congested, why aren’t
we diverting the funds to something that
needs to be fixed?”
“I think we need to have a
good viable connection all the way to
the bypass [on South Main],”
Commissioner David Camacho said. People
have to stop for oncoming traffic to
make a left turn into the Cimarron
subdivision. “I would rather see the
long stretch.”
O’Donnell said the cost of
Franklin Street will be about $7 million
– it was listed at $2.4 million when the
bonds were approved in 2005 – but added
the project will be bid in three
sections and can be built a bit at a
time.
“It’s really a downtown
revitalization project,” Camacho told
Stinnett. “If we want to do something to
help downtown, a good entrance of the
bypass is essential.” |
