FLOWERY BRANCH – The Policy Committee of the Gainesville-Hall Metropolitan Planning Organization is where all GHMPO decisions find final approval or denial.
Tuesday morning members of the Policy Committee met in Flowery Branch for an update on how projects it has given the “go-ahead” to in the recent past are progressing.
The six members of the Policy Committee include the following officials or their designated representative: Mayors of Flowery Branch, Gainesville and Oakwood; chairpersons of the Hall and Jackson County Commissions; the Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation.
Among items of interest reported to the Policy Committee, Oakwood City Manager Stan Brown said work that began in January with a consultant on traffic improvement designs is nearly completed. The GHMPO provided funding for that traffic study.
Brown said actual work on the design plans will have to wait until city funding being used to pay the debt associated with the construction of Thurmon Tanner Parkway has been eliminated. “We’ll use this information to build into our future Capital Improvement Plans for the next ten years. After 2020 we should have about seven to eight hundred thousand (dollars) a year that we can put to transportation purposes.”
Design images of six of the changes hoped for by the City of Oakwood are viewable by scrolling through the images above.
Transportation Planning Manager Sam Baker told committee members a recommendation to include a funding request for a study on the feasibility of a bypass across northern Hall County comingled with other regional project funding requests had been considered by staff at GHMPO. Baker said, “This is something we as a staff have discussed. It is possible, but we feel that such a study should be done independently so that we can give it its proper attention.”
Baker continued his explanation: “The level of public involvement that is needed, we feel it will be better if it’s not done under this regional plan update but should be done separately and independently.”
Hall County Public Works Director Ken Rearden reported that work on the bridge spanning the railroad tracks at Tumbling Creek Road was proceeding nicely. “It’s actually way ahead of schedule; we’re looking at a March 30th completion date.”
“We actually fly a drone over it every two weeks,” Rearden told committee members. “It’s on our website if you want to see the progress of it.”
