Thursday, February 27, 2014

Question: Why are we not paving Vermack in front of Dunwoody High School?

Bad street, why not now?

I get lots of questions and answers flowing through my inbox and I think I need to do a better job in sharing these tidbits of information from time to time. Here is an example:

Question directed to me: "Please bring up the need to finish paving vermack rd. from village mill to mt. vernon... why they stopped paving is any ones guess....that section passes by dunwoody high school and is an embarressment to our city. appreciate your help in this matter....."

Knowing that this stretch is on the 2015 list, I reach out to Public Works Director Michael Smith for further insight as to possible specifics.

Response from Mr. Smith: "The remaining portion of Vermack up to Mount Vernon is planned for 2015. Between now and then we have a storm water repair project on the north side of Womack that will require excavating part of Vermack. We also are working on the design for the Mount Vernon intersection that will affect where we stop the paving to avoid overlapping with that project."

The fact is that many water and sewer pipes below our streets need to be replaced and the City Public Works Department coordinates their own schedule and works with DeKalb Water in order to schedule repaving immediately after the under street construction is completed. We have received DeKalb's list of sewer work and we have set our paving schedule accordingly. That is the reason that it may appear that we are not paving the important streets but in fact we are juggling a complex schedule where it takes cooperation from various governments to work together. It doesn't make sense to move up our paving schedule on some of the bad streets because we have already set the schedule with DeKalb and do not want to pave a street twice.

I know this is the reason that the intersection of Chamblee Dunwoody & Mount Vernon has not yet been done, so please have some patience as this intersection is scheduled for 2014 (as soon as DeKalb water is completed with their project).

PS: Council has been assured that the pothole crew's will be out in force once the temperatures warm up and the hot-mix supplies are available from the supplier.

1 comment:

dpgroupie said...

Thank you for publishing this information, John !!! I already knew this - because I asked the questions a long time ago, and it wasn't hard at all to get the answers. Michael Smith is doing his job and doing it WELL. Nevertheless, I STILL see and hear comments from people, one a former council candidate, who seem not to understand the complexities of the paving schedule, and secondly, that paving IS happening in a way that is feasible and timely. Progress on this project makes perfect sense.