The re-striping of Dougherty Street between Thomas and Pulaski streets in the northern edge of downtown Athens will begin today, following a vote last week by Athens-Clarke County commissioners to approve the project.
The work will transform Dougherty Street from what Commissioner Mike Hamby called “a bypass for downtown” into something more like the streets in the core of the downtown area. With the re-striping, the street will be transformed from two travel lanes in each direction, with center turn lanes and left turn lanes in some locations, to a route with a single travel lane in each direction with a center turn lane or left turn options along most of its length. The outside travel lanes in each direction will be re-striped as 72 metered parking spaces.
Initial plans for the Dougherty Street corridor focused on pedestrian safety improvements, and the installation of flashing yellow pedestrian beacons at Hull and Jackson streets, at a cost of $35,000, remains part of the work scheduled for the route.
The re-striping, though, is a result of a request from residents and a number of commissioners that the county’s Transportation & Public Works Department take a more detailed look at calming traffic along the corridor. According to a report from the department to the mayor and commission, reducing the corridor to two travel lanes will increase travel times for motorists, though not appreciably.
The re-striping will cost $20,000, according to the report to the mayor and commission, with the money for both the flashing beacons and the re-striping, totaling $55,000, coming from the Transportation & Public Works Department’s capital budget for crosswalk improvement projects.
Hamby called the reconfiguration of Dougherty Street to three lanes “a big safety fix” and added the change will “extend the activities for downtown” into the Dougherty Street area. That could be important, Hamby suggested at the Tuesday meeting where the commission approved the work, as the county government and the Athens Downtown Development Authority explore possibilities for the redevelopment of a parking lot off Dougherty Street at Hotel Indigo into some type of commercial, retail or combined use.
David Clark, director of the Transportation & Public Works Department, said Friday the work was planned for this coming week to coincide with the University of Georgia’s spring break, when traffic along Dougherty Street will be lighter.
Motorists won’t be hindered much at all today, Clark said, as crews lay out the re-striping plan. Beginning Tuesday and until the work is completed, motorists will encounter lane closures along sections of the route that are being re-striped on that particular day, Clark explained.
In other action at their Tuesday voting meeting, Athens-Clarke’s commissioners gave unanimous approval to a set of goals and strategies for the upcoming fiscal year’s budget and beyond. The setting of goals and strategies is normally completed within the last couple months in the year before a new budget is scheduled to be adopted, but the press of other business, combined with a desire of some commissioners to add to the list of goals and strategies, delayed the final adoption of the goals and strategies for the upcoming fiscal year until Tuesday’s meeting.
However, as the result of some assistance from the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government, the commission now has a new process for developing budget goals and strategies. Under that new process, various strategies are listed under four broad goal categories: human and economic development, public safety, quality of place and efficient, transparent and responsive government.
As just a couple of examples, strategies listed among those goals include things like adjusting compensation and benefits so that the county government remains a competitive employer, increasing sidewalk construction, surveying sewer lines and looking for ways to help provide facilities for technology entrepreneurs.
Acting Athens-Clarke County Manager Blaine Williams took time Tuesday to thank commissioners for trying the UGA-assisted process, saying that, in his view, it produced a “much more holistic vision” that is easier for residents to understand and for the government staff to implement.
Williams went on, though, to caution both the elected officials and residents that fiscal and staffing constraints mean that not all of the strategies outlined in the document approved Tuesday by the commission would be accomplished in the upcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1.
