Grants rev up road work in North Georgia

Cars drive on Crittenden Avenue Saturday afternoon in Chickamauga, Ga. The stretch of road is part of 27.9 miles of road in North Georgia that will be resurfaced by the Georgia Department of Transportation.

Photo by Ashlee Culverhouse.

The Georgia Department of Transportation will spend $1.7 million to resurface 27.9 miles of local roads in eight counties in Northwest Georgia.

One street to get a makeover is a stretch of Crittenden Avenue in Chickamauga.

"Every little bit helps. Paving's getting to be pretty expensive, so that's wonderful news," said Chickamauga City Manager John Culpepper.

"It was getting bad," he said of the avenue, which gets a lot of truck traffic from the Shaw Industries plant. The city has been repaving Crittenden as money became available, Culpepper said.

Funding for the road work comes through the state Transportation Department's local maintenance and improvement grant program, which is funded by state fuel taxes. The department determines how much money a community receives based on its population and how many miles of roads it has.

"The locals send us a list of their roads that need resurfacing, and we help them preserve the integrity of these streets," transportation department spokesman Mohamed Arafa said.

Talley Construction Co. Inc. of Rossville submitted a low bid of $937,555 to resurface 18 city streets and county roads totaling 15.5 miles in Catoosa, Dade and Walker counties.

In Chattooga County, Colditz Trucking Inc. of Blairsville, Ga., submitted the winning low bid of $448,897 to resurface 7.5 miles of various county roads and streets in Summerville and Menlo.

Colditz Trucking also submitted a winning low bid of $325,881 to resurface 4.9 miles of county roads and streets in Cherokee, Fannin, Gilmer and Pickens counties.

Whitfield and Murray counties do their own road paving, using the state grant funds, so their projects aren't put out to bid by the state, according to David Huff, assistant administrator of the road program.