City of Sparta taking the next steps with its T-DOT multimodal grant for work on its Spring Street sidewalks.
The Board of Aldermen approved an engineering contract at its meeting Thursday night. Mayor Jerry Lowery said the project will be a significant benefit for the safety of the city’s pedestrians.
“If you’ve ever passed someone on a bicycle or walking that path and they do often, I’ve even seen students walking from school on that path,” Lowery said. “It’s really a tight thing for them and it’s unsafe.”
City Administrator Tonya Tindle said the city was awarded some $1 million with no match. She said the project scope stretches from Bockman Way to the middle school, to Turntable Road.
Tindle said the engineer estimates a three-year project timeline. She said the next step will be to see how much right-of-way acquisition is required to start construction.
“Right now we are predicting about a year for right of way acquisition and about 18 months to do the design and starting the construction,” Tindle said. “So we probably won’t even start construction for two and a half to three years.”
In other business, the board also approved purchasing a mosquito fogger for some $15,000. Lowery said moving forward, he would like the city to be more active about advertising this type of work so citizens are better informed of what’s going on.
