
Mayor David O’Mary, City Planner Keith Pike, and Sain Associates Engineer Stefan Graber traveled to Fayette on Wednesday afternoon to meet with Alabama Department of Transportation Area officials and kickoff the 2022 ATRIP II project for Jasper. The meeting was a virtual meeting between the those covered by the Fayette Area ALDOT Office and the West Central Regional Re-Construction Office in Tuscaloosa.
The Jasper project will focus on a portion of Hwy 118 (old 78) west bound in front of Sonic Restaurant and Urgent Care offices and will also include the addition of an eastbound turning lane. “This project will extend the frontage road at Sonic an additional 300 ft to the west while also adding a turn lane on the eastbound side.” Said Pike. “It will relocate the frontage road connection slightly to align with Jones Dairy Rd a little better. The idea is to reduce the conflict points for traffic flow in that area as it pertains to turning into Urgent Care or Sonic.” Driveway access to both businesses will have improved access from the frontage road and not directly from Hwy 118/78.
O’Mary spoke about the grant funding and the relationship with ALDOT and the city as he prepared to leave for the meeting, “The city of Jasper is receiving $1.8 million dollars in grant funding for this project, while only contributing $300,000. That is a strong trade off, especially where infrastructure work related to safety is concerned. There were times in the not too distant past that the city would not have had to money for matching funds or would have needed to reorganize budgets to move this forward. I am proud to say we are not in that position anymore. Our people have worked hard to be able to take advantage of these opportunities as they come along.”
The meeting was step one in the startup phase, according to an email sent by ALDOT officials, the contacts for all groups involved would be introduced to each other and job responsibilities for Phase 1 assigned. “Jasper continues to move in the right direction, and we will continue to work hard to promote growth for our city.” Said O’Mary