Transportation Investment Act
Your Penny, Your Progress

If you have driven through the interchange on Interstate 75 at SR 31, you likely noticed that the beams are up on the new overpass. In coming weeks you may see teams making minor adjustments, but the bridge finally looks like an actual bridge. Next up after the adjusting: deck work!

These days, tasks are primarily focused on the ramps. On the east side of the interchange, crews are still clearing out the roadside that will later contain the widened on- and off-ramps to Interstate 75. Excavator operators are quickly taking out the old culvert beside the on-ramp to Interstate 75 northbound; when they're done, new earth will be brought in to level out the whole area.

In fact, leveling will be among the important next steps scheduled for the interchange. The widened ramps are integral to the new roundabouts that will be installed at the intersections with SR 31, so it's important to make sure all work is done to the exact measurement specifications indicated in the project's design. You can see in the first photo below how much higher the new Interstate 75 southbound on-ramp is alongside the current one. Throughout the project's timeline, the contractors will be raising the entire interchange to that height so that traffic flow from and to all directions will be smooth and safe. In the meantime, you can see that asphalt has been laid on these west-side on- and off-ramps, and on the Interstate 75 southbound off-ramp workers are installing the bases for the new lights that will be going up.

At times, some tasks may require lane closures under the overpass. Most of these will occur at night for the public's convenience and safety, but Georgia DOT and TIA will send out alerts through broadcast and social media in advance. Keep your eyes open for these announcements, and #DriveAlert #ArriveAliveGA!

All year long we've been celebrating TIA's first 10 years, from 2013 to 2022. As part of the remembrance, today we're releasing a video featuring local leaders from all four of our participating regions as well as the Georgia DOT. Through a lot of collaboration, coordination, calculations and especially communication, they tackled long lists of necessary projects, all made possible with a one-cent sales tax approved by the counties and communities they serve. Let's take a look at how TIA got started and what it has accomplished so far. Click here to watch the video. 

Feel free to share the link with others who may want to see their community's leaders and projects. Keep an eye out for our second video, focused on the economic, safety and civic progress made by the participating regions through TIA.

While one group of construction crews continues leveling the Buena Vista Road ramps up to the new, higher bridge, a number of utility teams has moved in to the eastern end of the project, Buena Vista Road from the Interstate 185 overpass to just before the North Linden Drive intersection. This portion of the roadway will be widened and these various workers must relocate water lines, cables and other underground facilities before the actual road work can begin. Right now, there's a LOT of digging going on.

It may look like an invasion of giant gophers has beset this area of Columbus, with multiple holes and piles of dirt and asphalt all lined up along the roadway's south side. Remember to continue driving alert and cautiously through the project's work zone, as these holes are deep and contain huge concrete pipes and masonry. A moment's distraction or speeding could result in your vehicle veering off into one.

Back at the interchange, more digging is underway, as excavators carve out the areas near the current north side on- and off-ramps that will become additional lanes as part of the interchange's future diverging diamond configuration. You can also see where concrete crews recently laid new roadway to connect the new bridge to the south side on- and off-ramps. There's much more activity scheduled through the fall months, so stay tuned for future announcements and alerts. 

 

The Flowing Wells Road improvements project is one of two TIA-funded endeavors currently in construction that are focused on growing corridors extending from Interstate 20 in Columbia County. As the county's residential and economic bases grow, so does the traffic. The Flowing Wells Road project is currently 65% complete, but a lot of work is still happening - and it's happening all throughout the project, from beginning to end.

When a roadway is widened, a variety of work crews are activated to do everything from excavating land in the new right-of-way to moving utility lines, from to constructing new concrete curb and gutter, to laying the new asphalt. Below you can see a utility crew working at the corner of Flowing Wells Road and Wheeler Road, surrounded by cars and trucks passing through the busy intersection. Moving a bit west on Wheeler Road, a signal team member provides additional safety while directing the flow of vehicles alongside a number of work units. 

You may not see some of the smaller teams on the roadsides. The masonry workers have shielded themselves from traffic by parking their truck directly behind their portion of the work zone. Some concrete teams are off the roadway but on commercial property sites. When large construction projects affect business driveways and other infrastructure, the projects' plans must include tasks to restore the facilities in good or better condition.

Some crews are right out in the roadways as well. The orange-and-white barrels and delineators aren't placed just to add some attractive color to the corridor - they're an integral part of the project's safety plan. Rather than close a lane altogether, usable lane space is sometimes narrowed just enough to allow vehicles to pass through but also provide a slim work zone for the crews. In these cases, it's very important for drivers to slow their speeds, to remain alert and to keep some space from other vehicles to prevent possible accidents. 

When driving down a busy, construction-filled corridor, it can be frustrating to have to slow down and carefully make your way through the work zone. Just focus on the future end result: a wider, safer and more efficient roadway that will help Martinez and Columbia County continue to grow and prosper.

During the Heart of Georgia Altamaha (HOGA) region's first TIA decade, the City of Claxton resurfaced 26 of its streets. During its second TIA decade, an additional 17 Claxton streets will get new asphalt. In fact, the vast majority of HOGA projects within both decades are resurfacings, whether for state routes or municipal roads. Ask any city or county leader and they'll tell you: infrastructure maintenance is a necessary but expensive task,. For many counties and cities within the HOGA region, finding money in the budget to resurface roadways can be difficult, often leading to many local governments putting the jobs on hold. However, when local leaders learned that TIA funds could provide necessary money to take old projects off back burners - especially roadway resurfacings - they added a lot of them to their project investment lists. There are hundreds of them, in fact.

Because there are so many projects involving portions of city streets and county roads to contract out, local leaders and engineers are bundling groups of smaller projects into one proposal to be bid out to infrastructure contractors. This makes business sense for a variety of reasons: 1) instead of having to deal with many contractors, they can work with one to do multiple projects; 2) the contractor can utilize resources more efficiently, making the overall venture more cost-efficient; and 3) having one contractor do multiple sites at once can make the work go quicker, which lessens impacts to the driving community. The contractors get larger projects to do, and local governments have a less complicated, less expensive way to get more roads upgraded. It's a win-win for everyone.

A bundle of seven portions of streets in Claxton was recently bid out and the winning contractor is McLendon Enterprises of Vidalia. A 'notice to proceed' order was issued to McLendon at the end of June, and now the contractor is gearing up to start work. 

Two of the streets to be resurfaced are near county offices, where people from all over Evans County come for services. West James Street from Gregory Street to North Grady Street includes the Evans County Board of Education, and many intersections that provide direct access to the Claxton Police Department, the Evans County Board of Commissioners Office and the Evans County Library. North Newton Street from SR 30 to West James Street includes the Evans County Health Department. 

Many of the streets in this resurfacing bundle are in Claxton's northwest quadrant and traffic can be heavy. For example, North Grady Street from SR 30 to West James Street is bordered on one side by the famous Claxton Fruitcake Company bakery and on the other side by the Evans County Superior Court Buildings. Not far away, Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive from SR 73 to Church Street is a well-traveled corridor in one of Claxton's older neighborhoods. It has many public gathering places, including churches, funeral homes and popular restaurants. 

Not all streets to be resurfaced in this bundle are in business or government areas. The group also includes South Spring Street from West Smith Street to West Liberty Street and Earl Avenue from South College to Hendrix Street. When businesses or industries look to set up shop in a new town or city, the quality of the residential infrastructure can be as important as the commercial thoroughfares. Civic and economic growth are both key factors in a municipality's success, and everyone wants to live in towns where the roads are safe and smooth.

Claxton residents and visitors will want to keep an eye out for alerts sharing information about construction activity and any possible traffic slow-downs related to the resurfacing crews at work. Drivers may deal with disruptions for a time, but when the projects are complete the whole county will benefit from safer, more efficient streets that are attractive and will last for years to come. 

With this project well underway, you'll find a busy hub of activity driving in the area of Old Cusseta Road and Farr Road. This is the location where multiple construction crews are working on multiple tasks, and there's a lot to see as you go carefully through the work zone. 

At the intersection, you'll see that workers have cleared what's called 'the footprint' for this part of the project underneath the Interstate 185 overpass. In coming months, crews will build a new bridge to serve as an onramp to the overpass here. To make room for the new onramp, a section of Farr Road will be moved to a new alignment, and just a bit further east on Old Cusseta you'll see excavators and other large vehicles clearing out the land where the future Farr Road will be. Also, you can see through these photos how quickly a summer storm can move through the region and provide a quick 'time out' on construction. The workers kept going until the storm hit, but it took only minutes for the skies to go from partly cloudy with sun to gray and ominous.

You'll see some interesting piles of things throughout the work zone. On one side of the roadway, huge concrete pipe is stacked up, waiting to be buried as utility crews move the water lines throughout the area. On the other side is an enormous pile of tires that had been scattered along the side of the road. As clearing teams went through the work zone creating this section of the project footprint, they had to sort out lots of litter debris as well as brush and grass. 

For the next few weeks, you'll see utility workers digging up old water lines and burying pipe in its new positioning along Farr Road. A lot of coordination among team members to carefully and properly place these new lines, so you may see a lot of construction equipment and people through the area. The work zone has been designated with everyone's favorite orange-and-white safety barrels and you'll note that the two lanes are a bit narrower than usual. As always, please slow down and #DriveAlert through this project's boundaries and both you and our crew members will #ArriveAliveGA!

 

 

Summer is a great time for road and bridge construction in Georgia, as the weather is mostly sunny and hot apart from the occasional storm. Crews working on projects in rural Georgia tend to have additional challenges in summer: an abundance of annoying gnats and surprise snakes, especially in or near rivers or lakes. Recent storms in Southern Georgia have made it so that at the US 82 bridge replacement site, teams are dealing with a LOT of mud and a LOT of gnats, and they're taking a LOT of care to make sure no one steps on a hidden water moccasin. 

All of this is happening while the crews need to be focused on accurate measurements and maneuvering. The work underway involves driving the future bridge's piles, or long concrete columns that are forced down into the ground and will form part of the foundation. On the west end of the project, you can see piles that have already been driven. The two on the ends may look crooked, but they are at the exact angles necessary for the bridge's design. You can also see piles with a wooden framework on top. Soon, a team will pour concrete into that wooden form to build a cap, or wedge that will distribute the bridge deck's weight evenly across the piles. 

On the east end of the site, workers are driving test piles to make sure they know exactly how deep to push them into the earth. See those tall columns in the middle? Those are test piles. Some crew members are building a steel 'template' that will guide the piles into the ground at exactly the right location and angle. The girders themselves must be lifted with extreme care, as they can weigh hundreds of pounds per foot.

While one group is readying a girder, another is perched high above the riverbank. A welder is preparing their platform to fit the waiting girder. The crew use an umbrella to ensure the sun's bright overhead glare doesn't interfere with the shaping. Occasionally, a test pile is lifted up by another crane so that the workers can check how well their metal template is coming together. It must be exactly right, or the piles won't be in their proper places and the bridge's foundation won't be as stable.

As you can see, there's a lot of interesting activity at the bridge project site. Just as the workers have to be alert despite the mud, bugs and serpents, drivers must also keep their focus on their task at hand: driving safely through the work zone. Remember, #DriveAlert and #ArriveAliveGA, and keep your eyes on the road and not on the construction. I'll make sure see lots of progress in our TIA social media and here on this blog. 

Contractors recently completed major construction on this TIA-funded project that was developed to improve safety for drivers and pedestrians in part of Dublin's Stubbs Park neighborhood - just west of the current Stubbs Park footprint. The two biggest parts of the project involved the installation of roundabouts to replace the intersections at West Moore Street at Claxton Dairy Road and Calhoun Street at Woodrow Avenue. Roundabouts do three important things: they allow traffic to flow more freely, they slow drivers down and they force them to pay more attention - all of which will benefit the motorists and the surrounding residents. The roundabouts have been landscaped to be aesthetically pleasing as well.  

Drivers will notice that Calhoun Street is no longer connected to West Moore Street - the portion of roadway that joined the two has been removed to allow the city to move forward with overall plans to redevelop and enlarge Stubbs Park. Civic leaders opted to install a new circular parking lot where the old roadway was located to encourage residents to drop by and make use of new pedestrian facilities.

As for those pedestrian facilities, new sidewalk has been built in to connect a walkway entirely around the space bordered by West Moore Street, Elm Street, Woodrow Avenue and the former portion of Calhoun Street. To provide added safety for walkers and the surrounding area, elegant light poles are situated all along the sidewalk. They have banner-holders so the city can add signage as needed. 

The project was advanced as one part of a the broader effort to redevelop Stubbs Park and its surrounding neighborhood as a 'point of pride' for the city of Dublin and Laurens County as a whole. Keep an eye out for the next steps in the city's plans!

A lot has happened since we last visited this project in April, as crews get ready for the next big step in their construction process: bringing in and setting beams on the new concrete columns and caps (a cap is the platform that goes across the top of the columns and helps distribute weight from the beams to the columns - the more you know!). In recent weeks, workers finished the new central columns and cap, and now they're completing wooden forms so they can pour the concrete that will be the cap on the east-end abutment. Project engineers believe the beams will be set later this summer - we'll send out a social media alert and a news release to let everyone know when that will be happening.

In the meanwhile, other teams have finished a few retaining walls. You may also see workers doing specialized tasks from time to time, like this traffic signal engineering duo. Be sure to drive alert and carefully throughout the work zone - you never know who could be active close by.

The grading crews are still at work along many of the interchange's on-ramps and off-ramps, building up and leveling the land that will contain the new widened lanes. Below, you can see that the area around the off-ramp from Interstate 75 to SR 31 WB is all flat and level, while teams are continuing the process on the on-ramp from Interstate 75 to SR 31 EB. Imagine how efficient this interchange will be in future, with the extra lanes on the on-ramps and off-ramps leading to the new roundabouts at the intersections. 

The new half of the Buena Vista Road bridge over Interstate 185 is fully constructed - you can see it when you drive through the interchange. So why aren't any vehicles driving on it yet? The new bridge lanes and future-improved interchange are at a higher grade than the current onramps and offramps, so right now crews are leveling up the rest of the interchange to meet the new standards. On the offramp from Interstate 185, you can see bulldozers, excavators and other vehicles adding and building up ground material where new lanes will be added as well. 

In the left-hand photo below, you can see how much higher the new roadway grade is compared to the former grade. Many tons of aggregate material will be trucked in to level up the entire area. This task will take a few months to complete, weather pending. 

While the interchange itself is grading up, there are other jobs underway through the length of the project. For example, concrete crews recently built a safety barrier wall in front of the entrance to Patriot Place Apartments. 

You'll still see utility crews on the roadsides, continuing their work relocating water, sewer and media lines. Many of their team members are working somewhat below the visible roadway surface, in trenches or tunnels. As always, please #drivealert when passing through this work zone - from just east of the Brighton Road intersection on the west end, to just west of Linden Drive on the east end - and we'll ALL #arrivealiveGA!