The City of Madison has announced significant progress in its ongoing road repair and resurfacing efforts.
This initiative marks the beginning of a comprehensive project by a local contractor, East Coast Grading, to improve six key roads within the city through a strategic partnership with Morgan County.
By collaborating with Morgan County, Rutledge, and Bostwick, the City of Madison has leveraged the county’s larger volume contract to secure more favorable bid prices for the road repair projects. This partnership highlights the city’s commitment to maximizing resources and ensuring the efficient use of funds for infrastructure improvements.
Madison City Manager John Klimm thanked Morgan County Manager Adam Mestres for his leadership in bringing cities together to achieve cost savings.
From July 31 to Aug. 1, Fairground Road received much-needed asphalt patching repairs. While Fairground Road was only scheduled to be patched this year out of necessity, the remaining five roads on the list will undergo varied levels of paving and surface treatments this year: Peters Street, Old Post Road (Walton to Central), Dixie Avenue (city limits), Fourth Street and E. Central Avenue.
The total cost of this year’s resurfacing contract is projected to be approximately $440,000. Over $180,000 will be funded by the Georgia Department of Transportation’s annual Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant (LMIG) funds.
This is a significant increase from the $71,000 received from GDOT last year. The grant amount is determined by available state maintenance funds and a complex formula that considers population and city-maintained roads' miles.
“Our road paving and repair projects must share with drainage repairs, sidewalk repairs, and capital projects for a small pot of money,” City Engineer Aaron Wadley said. “This money comes from the state’s LMIG Grant (gas tax) and the Morgan County TSPLOST (sales tax).
According to a press release from the City of Madison, Buildings & Grounds Supervisor Erin Tewksbury and his department do a lot to maintain roadway infrastructure with very few dollars. The city cannot do paving in-house, and officials must get creative to keep its paved roads in excellent condition.
“It is critically important that we maintain our infrastructure in a cost-effective manner,” Klimm said. “Deferring needed maintenance almost always leads to increased and unnecessary costs.”
The timing of these projects will be determined by the contractor, but Wadley anticipates that most of the city’s roads will be fully resurfaced before Oct. 31.