City hopeful 2nd Avenue will be ready in time for school start Wednesday
Aug. 9—With local students heading back to class tomorrow, city leaders have their fingers crossed that Second Avenue NE — closed to traffic all summer — will be open and ready for traffic as the first day of school arrives.
Construction on the three-block span of Second Avenue from Arnold Street to Oak Avenue won't be completely finished when fall classes begin on Wed., Aug. 10. But Cullman mayor Woody Jacobs says he's hopeful that the street will be usable during the morning and afternoon rush that ferries students toward Cullman Middle School, Cullman High School, and the Cullman Primary School on the city's north end.
"On Wednesday when mamas start bringing kids to school, and high school kids start driving to school, that section will be open — barring some kind of catastrophe," Jacobs said at Monday's Cullman City Council meeting. "I pray that nothing goes wrong. The contractors did not have to do this, but we begged them and have worked with them, and I think it's going to happen."
Jacobs said crews plan to work through the day Tuesday surfacing the drive lanes along the full length of the refurbished street area, leaving the center lane, striping, crosswalk finishing, and landscaping features along parallel pedestrian areas all to be completed during light-traffic hours once school has begun. "On Wednesday, we won't be completely through with it, but we will be able to drive on it," he said.
Final touches on the project, intended to improve the edges of municipal park property between Depot Park and the forthcoming city skate park, likely will take another month to complete. Jacobs said the city will install brick-paved crosswalks across Second Avenue similar to those already in place at the nearby Warehouse District along First Avenue. But those, he added, must be cut into the finished asphalt and will likely be done during fall break, once the street has been striped.
Even though the street will be open to traffic during peak school traffic hours this week, it will close during the day to make way for construction crews to surface and stripe the portions that remain unfinished, said Jacobs.
In other business at its regular meeting Monday, the city council:
* Awarded a bid for a work truck to be used by the police department to Eckenrod Ford in the amount of $49,237.
* Awarded a bid for a single axle dump truck to be used by the street department to Nextran Truck Centers in the amount of $118,543.
* Adopted a resolution approving a transportation plan pursuant to the Rebuild Alabama Act, ahead of planned paving projects on the city's northwest side.
* Adopted a resolution agreeing to apply for funding through the Appalachian Regional Council (ARC) for planned improvements at Depot Park.
Benjamin Bullard can be reached by phone at 256-734-2131 ext. 234.
