A look ahead at 2017: Sidewalk projects

Homewood has several projects in store for 2017 to make traveling easier for vehicles and pedestrians.

The city’s $2 million paving project is set to continue. Building, Engineering and Zoning department employee Greg Cobb said paving will start with the roads that are listed in worst condition by a Volkert Engineering study.

Those streets include segments of 28th and 29th Avenue South, 18th Street South, 16th Place, Park Ridge, Barber Court, College Avenue, Wellington Road, Ridge Road, State Farm Parkway, Clermont Drive, Hall Avenue, South Forrest Drive, Columbiana Road, Tamworth Lane, Devon Drive, Brookwood Medical Plaza Drive, Independence Court, Briscoe Road and Shadow Lawn Drive. Each of these segments is under a mile in length.

For the 2017 fiscal year that started in October, $2.3 million is budgeted for paving projects. 

It may take longer than one year to complete repaving of this set of streets. Once completed, the city can move on to its streets in better condition and repave, seal cracks and otherwise repair them. 

This will be a multi-year project to complete the entire city, but Cobb said the new pavement will last about 17 years, depending on use, before a new surface or more repair work is needed.

New sidewalks are also on the way, as the city has allocated $437,000 for new construction and $50,000 for repairs. Cobb said the new construction will include Parkridge Drive, Mayfair Drive and parts of Saulter Road, with other projects to be added later. 

As they repair sidewalks, the city will also be bringing them into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act requirements. 

Cobb said this takes significant time and expense, as many of Homewood’s older sidewalks need significant changes to build wheelchair-accessible ramps. He hopes to get downtown area sidewalks compliant first, and then start from Homewood’s schools and work outward to eventually bring the entire city into compliance.

“To anybody looking at it, it seems like it moves at a snail’s pace. It really doesn’t,” Cobb said.

Fellow BEZ employee Vanessa McGrath said the city greenway also will see progress in 2017. There are still right-of-way easements to be acquired from property owners surrounding the proposed greenway path. Once those easements have been acquired, McGrath said the path will take about a year to complete, at most.

“I hope to see it finished by 2018,” she said.

Finally, the city of Homewood will attempt to move up the Lakeshore diverging diamond intersection project to 2017. 

Cobb said the West Oxmoor “turkey foot” intersection project was planned to come first, but it has been delayed with issues of project cost and right-of-way acquisition. So, the city will ask for approval from Birmingham’s Metropolitan Planning Organization to swap the two road projects.

If the MPO agrees to the switch, Cobb said construction on Lakeshore Drive could begin in spring 2017 and wrap up in roughly six months. 

The project is supposed to improve traffic flow by having traffic temporarily cross to opposite sides of the road on the bridge over I-65. 

This would include removing the existing southbound ramp for I-65 and building a new ramp, creating a single left turn lane from eastbound Lakeshore Parkway to Wildwood Parkway, adding right-in and right-out access at the Wildwood shopping center with Walmart and Sam’s Club and adding westbound and eastbound auxiliary lanes between Wildwood Parkway and the southbound I-65 ramp.

It’s also possible that a sidewalk would be added to the project and connect to the greenway.

Despite the large scope of the Lakeshore project, Cobb said he believes it will move quickly once approved because it mostly involves working with existing infrastructure rather than entirely new construction.