News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Baxter will have to decide what steps to take with repaving and repairs on the old Ditty Road.
The road has been closed since June 20th while crews extended utilities to Portobello. City Engineer Tom Bennett told the mayor and alderman at its Thursday night meeting that he has discussed options for a suitable fix with crews, including tar and chip and micro surfacing.
“As of right now the response that I got includes overlay but what it doesn’t account for is what are we going to do with the utility trenches,” Bennett said. “So most commonly what you do is you pull out down to a level, put some pug mix in, you come up with some binder, and then overlay the whole thing. So that’s the discussion we’re going to need to have.”
Bennett said the city has a hefty budget to do paving work. He said they are at the point where the work can be done they just have to find the right solution.
Bennett said the city will also have to decide how to work the old Ditty Road into the new Ditty Road funded by T-DOT which is currently in its acquisition phase.
He said eventually that road will become a utility corridor, and be heavily used both by residents and industrial traffic.
“This two-year window we’re looking at is actually pretty important for the city because it’s going to be a city road for a couple more years, or however long it takes to build that road,” Bennett said.
Bennett said the utility extension is about three weeks out from completion, at which point the city will be able to move forward with paving. He said the new Ditty Road will be essentially in the same area as the old Ditty Road.
In other business, the Baxter Mayor and Aldermen also approved the annexation of several territories on final reading. This includes some 32 acres of land for Connex, LLC.
