Jeff Mullis

Stimulus money will be a “godsend” for Rossville, with federal dollars set to pave a road the city has tried to fix for a decade.

Efforts to pave McFarland Avenue have “been a saga,” said Rossville Vice Mayor Teddy Harris. “It’s just been on and on and on.”

Mayor Johnny Baker said he has met with state officials and has been told that stimulus money is locked in for the $600,000 project. Bids should go out in January and the project, including re-working 42 curbs to make them wheelchair accessible, should be completed by August, he said.

“It’s been in bad shape for 10 years,” Mr. Baker said.

Mr. Harris said city officials had acquired funding for the paving, only to find they needed more money to pay for grinding the old asphalt down first. By the time they found money for the grinding, asphalt prices soared in 2008, again putting the project out of reach.

Staff Photo by Allison Kwesell
A truck drives southbound on McFarland Avenue in Rossville.

In the meantime, tires from 15,000 to 20,000 vehicles a day have been wearing down the road, Mr. Harris said. Many commuters from Walker County use the north-south route to get to Chattanooga and the volume swells any time traffic is blocked on U.S. Highway 27 or Interstates 24 or 75, he added.

“The truth is, it’s been a bad ordeal for a long time because it’s a rough road that people have been driving every day,” said David Ashburn, road superintendent for Walker County.

The county paved its portion of the road a few years back, but left Rossville to pave its part, he said.

Mr. Baker praised the work of Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, and other state representatives in securing the funding.

“Had the stimulus not come in I don’t how the city would have put together the money to do it,” he said.

Sen. Mullis, who chairs the Senate transportation committee, said he was happy to see what he called “one of the few stimulus projects active in Northwest Georgia.” He said all of the legislators worked together to get the funding.

“It’s just a team effort and I’m part of the team,” he said.