County Determines Road Projects
The current Jasper County Board of Commissioners has stressed that roads should be a priority for Jasper County, and to that end, a Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) was passed last November.
There were 10 roads named in the SPLOST as being top priority to be improved with those monies, and two more have been added. Georgia Department of Transportation Commissioner Harold Linnenkohl visited Jasper County and committed the state to match Jasper County’s investment 75 cents on the dollar, meaning for every dollar the county spends, the state will spend 75 cents, thereby largely increasing the scope of what can be accomplished over the six year SPLOST.
Each year, the state also helps counties through its Local Assistance Road Program (LARP), and the commissioners voted at their regular meeting last week to remove the politics from choosing which roads would get worked on by determining need and doing the work where the greatest need exists.
For the LARP program, the state DOT asked Jasper County to submit not more than 10 miles or 10 roads. Once the county submits road names, the state assesses the roads submitted and determines what projects it will do. Generally Jasper County gets one mile of road resurfaced per year through this program.
The county recently began work on a road program attempting to address the road needs throughout the county. The county has drawn up a list of all roads in the county, and is working on rating those roads as to severity of need. Criteria taken into consideration includes length and width of road, number of houses, businesses, and churches on the road, and the condition of the road.
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When the list was originally drawn up, the commissioners asked for another element to be considered, and that is if the road has some other outstanding characteristic, such as being a feeder road for a main artery.
The study is not complete, but it was time to submit the request for LARP roads, so some 9.88 miles of road was submitted. The higher the overall score the road received, the more it needed resurfacing. LARP only resurfaces; it will not pave a dirt road.
Chickadee Court was rated the most needy road in the county that has not already been committed to a funding program. The dead-end road has 38 houses on .55 mile of road, and tops the LARP list.
Others on the list, in order of score, include Snipe Court, Brooks Drive, Dallas Trail, Stroz Drive, Waxwing Drive, Purple Martin Drive, Goldfinch Drive, Miss Sarah Drive, Bluebird Court, Loon Trail, Mockingbird Drive, Flicker Court, Crane Court, County Line Road North, Bobwhite Court, Eagle Drive, Lakeview Drive, Middle-brook Pond Road, Timothy Lane, Moseley Lane, and Shady Grove Church Road. The list has been submitted to DOT.
Photos in the print edition show Chickadee Court which is rated “fair,” and Jasper Street which is rated “good.” Jasper Street has not been scored. Both streets are adjacent to Jackson Lake. Chickadee is in Commission District 3, and Jasper is in Commission District 4.
The county already has some 20 roads committed to LARP/SPLOST funding. They include Apt-To-Miss Road, East and West Mourning Dove Courts, Runner Road, Norris Drive, Kirk Lane, County Line Road South, Linda Lane, Post Road, Jackson Lake Road South, Parrot Drive, Pitts Chapel Road West and East, Feldspar Road, Fellowship Road, Deerfield Farms Road, Davidson Road, Hodges Farm Road, Jeffries Road, and Bullard Road.
