Albany City Commission plans to double 2019 road improvements

ALBANY — The narrow victory in last week’s transportation special-purpose local-option sales tax referendum is already coming into play as the city of Albany prepares to kick off the second phase of its planned six-year $17.5 million road improvement plan.

Albany City Manager Sharon Subadan told the Albany City Commission Tuesday that she’d like to double the number of roads paved in 2019 by upping the funding for that project from $2.5 million to $5 million.

“This is not a bait-and-switch,” Subadan said. “Our citizens have made it clear that they want road improvements, so I am recommending that we go ahead, while bids are out, and increase the project funding from $2.5 million to $5 million. We’ll use SPLOST funds to move ahead with the project and then replace those funds once T-SPLOST collections kick in in July.

“This is an opportunity for our citizens to see an immediate impact of their T-SPLOST vote.”

And, the city manager said, there is a strong possibility of lower costs due to the volume of work being let to bid.

“We’re going to bid these projects in collaboration with the county, so with the amount of work we’ll have out there we expect to see a deeply discounted rate,” Subadan said. “And we’re moving forward now. We expect to get the bids back in a couple of weeks.”

The Albany city manager made the remarks during her update at Tuesday’s City Commission meeting.

Asked by Ward II Commissioner Matt Fuller if paving additional alleys would also be part of the city’s plan, Subadan said the commission could increase alley paving funding.

“The bid for alleys is well under your budget, so that could come back to you at any time,” Subadan said. “You budgeted $1 million for alley paving, and that bid came in at around $700,000. This is something that definitely could come back to this board.”

The city manager said MetroPower had so far installed 5,235 LED lights in the city, 42 percent of the fixtures that are part of a $6.5 million project to improve lighting throughout the city.

“Our goal was to finish the lighting project before the end of summer, so we’re well ahead of schedule on that project,” Subadan said.

The city manager also told commissioners bidding has closed on city sewer maintenance projects. She said she’d bring those bids and a staff recommendation to the commission in April.

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