The Technical Coordinating Committee of the Madison Athens Clarke Oconee Regional Transportation Study (MACORTS) voted last week to recommend to the body’s Policy Committee that it remove from its long range plans the proposed flyover connecting Daniells Bridge Road with the Oconee Connector.
The Technical Coordinating Committee also recommended that five projects be added to the MACORTS long range plans, all to accommodate requests from the Georgia Department of Transportation.
The Georgia Department of Transportation has decided to build the bypass of Bishop and widen U.S. 441 from the Morgan County line to Watkinsville entirely with state funds, bypassing the normal processes associated with federal highway funding.
That decision moves the timetable forward so that project engineering will begin in 2019 and right of way acquisition and actual construction is now slated for 2022.
A North Carolina real estate development company that specializes in medical office projects is putting together plans for what it is calling a health park on 14 acres at the corner of Jennings Mill Road and Virgil Langford Road.
Athens Regional Health System, parent company of Athens Regional Medical Center, will be the tenant in the first building in the proposed seven-building complex, according to architectural plans submitted to the Oconee County Planning Department.
The Georgia Department of Transportation has decided not to fund the widening of Jimmy Daniell Road, nullifying the project framework agreement signed by Oconee County in December of last year.
GDOT took this action because Oconee County never specified where it was going to find the $1.15 million estimated cost to the county for right of way acquisition for the project.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners agreed to spend nearly $300,000 last night to remove solids that have built up on the bottoms of the ponds at the Rocky Branch Land Application System sewage treatment facility.
Consultant Bob Sheldon told the Board that, as far as he knew, solids had never been removed from the ponds at the LAS site, which opened in 2002.
