The City of Hinesville is looking at a long list of roads that need help, and is putting together the means to improve those streets.
City council members have approved a list of streets to be submitted for the local maintenance and improvement grant under the state Department of Transportation.
The list includes 32 streets, at a total length of nearly 7.9 miles. LMIG projects also carry a 30% match from the local governments that are awarded the grants.
If the city’s list is approved and funding is granted, there could be as much as $905,000 to spend on upgrading roads, with money from the 2022 and 2023 LMIGs.
“There’s no guarantee we’re going to get to the bottom of this list,” said city engineer Paul Simonton.
Simonton has been rating the streets and if they receive a complaint on a street, it gets more attention.
Sections of Ricade Drive and Keith Drive are in bad shape, Simonton said, and Tanglewood Drive and Sagewood Drive also are in bad shape.
“They’re all pretty much equal once you get past Tanglewood, Sagewood, Ricade and Keith,” he said.
Barry McCaffrey Drive, especially near Crystal Lake, also has problems, Simonton pointed out. That stretch of Barry Mc-Caffrey is the second-longest of the areas on the LMIG list, at 3,091 feet. A 3,300-foot-long stretch of Bacon Road, between Mahoney and Eunice, is the longest, and a more than 3,000-foot-long portion of Sandy Run, between Jena Court and Liberty Oak Lane, is the third-longest.
Simonton noted that Sandy Run has become a major arterial road and serves many people. Cinder Hill Lane also has a several failures and patches, Smonton added.
Simonton told council members they can add or remove streets from the list. And council members have their eyes on several streets.
“Main Street in general is in pretty bad shape, from beginning to end,” said Mayor Allen Brown, “and we’ve got a ton of traffic that’s coming through our town every day on it. And it ain’t gonna get better.”
Other road projects are being funded through other means, such as the coming roundabouts that are part of the state DOT Transportation Alternatives Program, or TAP.
Plans call for an ovalshaped roundabout at the Hendry and Main streets intersection, and a second roundabout at Ryon Avenue and Main Street. With the roundabouts, the traffic signal at Main and Hendry would be removed.
Should the city decide to leave these two projects in the TAP, work may not start until 2025, so city officials are looking at ways to get that work started before 2025.
