Peachtree City officials are looking at spending $977,000 to repave a long stretch of Dividend Drive, which is the main road through the industrial park. The project would stretch from TDK Boulevard to Paschall Road, and it would be paid for
with funds collected in the city’s share of the 2003 countywide transportation sales tax.
The good news for businesses on Dividend is that the project won’t tie up traffic as badly as other road paving projects have in the past. That’s because a new type of approach will be used called full depth reclamation, which leaves a surface that can be driven on even before the final layer is put on.
The topic was hashed out Tuesday night at a workshop meeting of the city council.
City staff had initially proposed repaving all of Dividend Drive, but council agreed to eliminate the section from TDK Boulevard southward to Ga. Highway 74.
Councilman Eric Imker said he drove the entire length of Dividend the other day, and the southern portion wasn’t nearly as bad off as the rest of Dividend.
Councilwoman Kim Learnard said she too recently rode through Dividend “in my tiny little Honda” and she thought the road was fine.
Dividend, however, is the lowest-rated road in the city, meaning it has the most obvious damage, according to city staff. Furthermore, a study of the base surface underneath the road showed the depth of the base varied wildly.
City Engineer David Borkowski said part of the rationale for repaving Dividend was to do it while the city had available SPLOST funds. The other reasons was because the road is an economic engine for city businesses, and a new road might help spur economic development in the area.
Imker suggested the city hold off on repaving the southern section, instead making a concerted effort to be aggressive on maintenance so it “stays good longer,” in the parlance of city staff.
A city consultant on the project noted that there are two concrete plants on Dividend Drive, and concrete trucks cause the largest wear and tear on roads.
City staff laid out several options beyond a full repaving that would have been cheaper, but came with their own problems. Cutting out the bad patches and replacing them with new segments was one option, but in doing so the city would structurally weaken the segments that weren’t replaced, city staff said. That would have cost $835,000, according to city estimates.
The city also looked into just adding a new surface instead of going all the way down to the base, but the life of that project would be three to five years compared to at least 10 for the full depth reclamation, staff said. That would have cost $1 million for the entire stretch of Dividend Drive, according to city estimated.
Council also agreed to move quickly to fix some minor pavement issues on Cooper Circle. City staff will coordinate the timing with Cooper Lighting in an effort to coincide with downtime at the the facility.
That project will cost about $31,000, according to city estimates.
Public Works Director Mark Caspar also told council that the city is now evaluating its collector roads annually since they carry more traffic and have more wear and tear than other roads, which will continue to be evaluated every three years.
