The Georgia Department of Transportation recently awarded contracts for the completion of Martha Berry Highway and Chattooga bridge projects. The Northwest Georgia Paving company in Cartersville will handle the federally funded, road resurfacing of the busiest section of Martha Berry Highway in Rome, for $4 million. But the state contract was won by Talley Construction Co. of Rossville offering the lowest bid at $3,558,925, for the bridge replacement project on Ga. 100 in Chattooga County.
The bridge is being built over Clarks Creek just south of Silver Hill Road and although there is no specific start date, it is scheduled to be completed by May 31, 2022. To ensure smooth operations, a traffic control subcontractor will be available at the site when the bridge’s construction begins to affect the roadway.
The plans concerning the federally funded project will involve the milling down and resurfacing of just over 8 miles of the Martha Berry highway, between Turner McCall Boulevard in Rome and New Rosedale Road in Armuchee. The Northwest Georgia Paving company was given an official notice to commence its operations on Thursday but has not yet announced when the project will kick-off. According to the terms of the contract, the work should be completed by April 30, 2022. This project was selected by the GDOT district maintenance office from roads with low ratings in the state’s Pavement Condition Evaluation System (PACES).
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The Martha Berry Highway and Chattooga bridge projects were among the 30 nationwide contracts awarded by GDOT in May for a total of $ 102,133,925. The largest single contract from the GDOT’s most recent letting, worth approximately $32.2 million, went to E. R. Snell Contractor Inc., to widen and reconstruct 6.47 mi. of U.S. 1 in Jefferson County. The nearby Big Creek Bridge also will be replaced as part of this project.
Several funding options are being explored by Rome, Floyd County and according to the News-Tribune, Jefferson County is in one of the four regions in Georgia that passed the 10-year, one-cent sales tax packages under the GDOT’s Transportation Investment Act (TIA). As a result, those counties have a funding edge since 75 percent of the revenue goes toward helping GDOT offset the cost of their regional projects. Under the law, those projects are not subject to Congressional District Balancing, which requires state road money to be evenly distributed across the districts.
