The first phase of the Green Street study, a joint project between the city of Gainesville, Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) and the Gainesville-Hall Metropolitan Planning Organization, is complete, and officials said Phase II could get tricky.
Engineers with Southeastern Engineering, Inc. (SEI) presented their findings at Thursday morning's Gainesville city council work session, noting that neither Gainesville nor GDOT had records of the infrastructure on the historic street.
"You have a state route carrying a large amount of cars and trucks," said Jennie Agerton, evironmental services manager with SEI.
16-percent of that traffic is heavy trucks, said Agerton, while the average for such traffic is only 7-percent.
City leaders will be faced with a choice of a possible full-depth reclamation project, where crews would essentially strip everything down to the bottom and start over, something that might be necessary to fully fix the road and to secure federal funding for the project.
Many of the pipes underneath the roadway are compromised, said officials speaking to the council, but newly installed infrastructure could last as long as two centuries if installed properly.
Also at issue is that fact that the 0.6-mile stretch of roadway is part of three national historic districts and two local historic districts, making the repairs more of a legal challenge.
"Improvements can be made, but they need to be made carefully, and in a context-sensitive way," said Agerton.
The next phase of the project will be to plan out and execute the needed repairs, something that involves the cooperation of several entities to complete.
"I can't imagine the traffic congestion when we have to fix this street," said Mayor Danny Dunagan.
