Rocky Face roundabout project lined up for '24

Jan. 8—Whitfield County Engineer Kent Benson said he's optimistic that a new roundabout along Mount Vernon Road and Houston Valley Road in Rocky Face will be constructed — and finished — before 2024 is over.

"Just looking at crash data at that intersection, the speed of Mount Vernon and the long sight distance, plus the increased traffic on Houston Valley, it causes some driver frustration ... and sometimes (they) make some dangerous moves across the intersection," he said. "And some people think it's a four-way stop, also, when they come to the stop sign."

The roundabout project, he said, carries an estimated price tag of $900,000.

"Because of the way the land lays and the sight distance, we believe a roundabout is the best option there," he continued. "We don't have a hard schedule — we're beginning right of way acquisition this month and there are only four parcels. We hope to have that complete by the spring."

Elsewhere in Whitfield, Benson said another major project eyed for the new year is a signal installation at Beaverdale Road and Good Hope Road.

"There have been a lot of crashes at that intersection," Benson said.

As for paving projects, Benson checked off Houston Valley Road — from Mount Vernon Road to the top of Taylor's Ridge at the county line with Catoosa — and Dug Gap Road from the Dalton city limits down to Connector 3 as the two biggest targeted in 2024.

Local maintenance improvement grant (LMIG) funding for 2024, Benson said, is practically unchanged from 2023.

"It's about $1.3 million," he said. "We typically use that money for resurfacing, just repaving county roads."

Whitfield County Community Development Director Jake Bearden noted that a planning grant is in line from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) via the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT).

"That's around $200,000," he said. "That typically increases annually, it is a portion based on population — so as population grows, whether that be total population or population density, that amount grows in very small increments."

Benson said there are some sewer expansion projects that could potentially use American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding, but no transportation and/or road infrastructure projects that will take advantage of that funding stream in 2024 in Whitfield.

"With respect to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), as long as those funds are available — and we just received one grant notification called the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant — we do plan on partnering with the Whitfield County Schools system to develop, possibly, sidewalks and streetscaping projects around the schools," Bearden said. "We're in the very early stages of those conversations, so we plan to meet throughout this month to put together some sort of project package that we could submit for that in late February."

In Murray County, Bearden checked off two major infrastructure projects that are programmed for design — but not any construction — in 2024.

"There are some improvements in downtown Chatsworth with drainage, as well as a bridge replacement across the Conasauga River at the county line between Whitfield and Murray," he said.

As far as inflationary trend lines go, Benson said he's certainly observed an uptick in the prices of crushed stone over the last few years — which, in turn, have driven up the costs associated with asphalt and concrete.

"For an average county road, we're able to pave about seven miles per $1 million," he said. "So it's costing somewhere close to $150,000 per mile to pave county roads."

Roughly 15 years ago, Benson said the price was closer to $90,000 a mile.

"But it's been a steady growth over time," he said. "I won't say that it's just drastically increased since COVID these last two or three years, but it has certainly gone up."

While lead times for things like cross drain concrete pipes are still longer than they used to be, Benson said they are growing more "manageable."

Bearden said he also expects lead times to be less of a headache in 2024 than in years past.

"Because more emphasis is being placed on planning for that on the front side rather than running into those issues when construction starts," he said.