The Oak Ridge City Council on Thursday will consider an engineering contract of roughly $300,000 for pedestrian improvements on Oak Ridge Turnpike and South Illinois Avenue.
Under the resolution to be considered by Council, the $298,800 engineering services contract would be awarded to Kimley-Horn of Nashville.
The estimated budget for the entire project, including both engineering and construction, is about $975,811. The work is being funded mostly with a Tennessee Department of Transportation Multimodal Access Grant of $927,021.40, Oak Ridge City Engineer Roger Flynn said in a May 24 memo to City Council members. The grant money will be allocated in three phases during a three-year period.
A 5 percent match of $48,790 is required, Flynn said.
Council accepted the TDOT grant for pedestrian improvements in August. The improvements will include the addition of about 43 handicap ramps, 30 crosswalks, and countdown pedestrian signals with push buttons, Flynn said.
Also, the project will build sections of new sidewalks at up to 24 locations, with the footage totaling about one mile. Repairs to as much as 800 linear feet of existing sidewalk is also proposed.
“The actual footage amount will depend on bid prices prior to construction,” Flynn said.
The engineering services contract with Kimley-Horn, the unanimous choice of an evaluation committee, would include nine tasks that would a conditions survey, preliminary and final design, environmental permitting, project management, and progress meetings and public involvement.
The Thursday meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the Oak Ridge Municipal Building Courtroom at 200 South Tulane Avenue. You can see the agenda here.
More information will be added as it becomes available.
Do you appreciate this story or our work in general? If so, please consider a monthly subscription to Oak Ridge Today. See our Subscribe page here. Thank you for reading Oak Ridge Today.
Copyright 2017 Oak Ridge Today. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Leave a Reply