Motorists traveling along Luther Bailey Road in southeast Coweta County outside Senoia will see detours beginning May 12 and extending through Nov. 8 while crews demolish the bridge at Double Branch Creek and construct the replacement bridge.
County Director of Development and Engineering Wayne Kennedy in a May 5 letter said the road closure will be signed and detoured along Luther Bailey Road, Gordon Road to the southwest, Eastside School Road to the south and Old Highway 85 to the east. Variable message signs will be installed on each end of Luther Bailey Road to notify the traveling public, Kennedy said.
The replacement of the Double Branch Creek bridge was a part of the 2010 1-cent sales tax-funded bridge projects. The cost of demolishing the old bridge at Double Branch Creek and constructing its replacement is $400,000.
County commissioners in January 2010 were provided with an overview of bridge replacements funded by Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) revenues, Coweta County and the Ga. Dept. of Transportation.
Kennedy at that meeting said that SPLOST funding was expected to pay for bridge work at Moore Road and White Oak tributary in 2011 and Moore Road at Little White Oak Creek in 2012. Still other needed bridge projects include Little White Oak Creek at Al Roberts Road, Keg Creek at McIntosh Trail and projects along creeks on Holbrook Road, Mt. Carmel Road and J.D. Walton Road, Kennedy said.
The condition of some of Coweta’s bridges mirrors that of bridges in communities across America. Kennedy said all 13 bridges on the project list, along with 10 others, have a sufficiency rating score of 30-50 points. Bridges scoring below 50 are considered to be in need of replacement, he explained. Citing a specific example from the list, Kennedy said the Shoal Creek bridge at Lower Fayetteville Road had a rating of 7 points.
