City holds Town Hall meeting to discuss sidewalk project

City of Sparta is working with Tennessee Department of Transportation to develop a sidewalk system on North Spring Street. The city  held a meeting Jan. 30 for citizens to come together and discuss the plans and voice any questions or concerns they might have.

“Once it gets completed it’s going to be really nice,” Sparta Mayor Jerry Lowery said. “We’ve got Spring Street on TDOT’s radar to be paved, so ,once we get the sidewalks and get that road paved, we are going to have a really nice pretty street that is good to drive on and good to walk on the side of.”

The sidewalk, which is part of a $1 million Multi-Modal Grant Project that the city has had in the works for a number of years, will be five feet wide and four inches thick. The new sidewalks will begin at the intersection of North Spring Street and Bockman Way and will continue north to Turntable Road and will include crosswalks with traffic signals at both of those intersections. With the project being part of a grant, there are several stages that have to be worked through before actual construction begins.

According to Project Engineer Patrick Fiveash, the North Spring Street Sidewalk Project is currently in an environmental phase. The hope is to have the approval in the next two months so that they can progress to the full design phase.

“It is always good to get our citizens’ questions and concerns addressed before a plan and design is set in stone,” Mayor Lowery said about the purpose of hosting the Town Hall meeting at this stage of the project. “The engineers will take our concerns and combine them with the citizen requests and then come up with a design that will only make the project better.”

While the total cost of the project has not been determined, it is likely that the city will be responsible for some of the cost despite the $1 million grant. However, Lowery said the city will be able to cut costs as they will be doing some of the work themselves.

“There is some stuff that it is going to cost us some with maybe moving a light pole or moving some water meters and our guys are going to be working out there as well so that cost,” Lowery explained. “But the majority of this is going to be fully funded by taxpayer dollars from TDOT.”

Lowery said he was pleased with the turnout for the Town Hall meeting and that citizens came prepared with great questions that spurred good interaction between all parties. One such question had to do with whether or not there was a necessity for a sidewalk on Spring Street.

“I’ve seen people walking, I’ve seen people riding bikes even on North Spring Street,” Lowery said. “It’s a dangerous spot, and we just think it would be better to create a walking area, and that’s a big plan of the city.”

While traffic is not expected to be impacted too much by the project, inevitably there will be some rerouting or lane closures at times. Residents and drivers alike don’t have to worry about any changes happening to their daily routines anytime soon, however. Fiveash said it could be anywhere from a few months to a few years before they break ground on the project. Once that finally happens, however, the project is estimated to take between nine and 12 months to complete.

“We know this will create some discomfort in traffic as the project begins,” Lowery said, “but the end result will be a great place for our residents to walk and exercise in a safe way.”