City adds roundabout to Kimball Bridge planning

The Alpharetta City Council has approved spending an additional $51,545 in design fees to have AECOM Technical Services Inc. draw up plans for a roundabout at Kimball Bridge and Rock Mill roads.

The roundabout joins planned improvements to the Kimball Bridge corridor between North Point Parkway and Waters Road. The idea for the traffic circle arose at a Jan. 24 open house showing preliminary designs; a number of residents asked about its feasibility, according to a staff report to the council.

AECOM developed a dual-lane roundabout concept and, through modeling, found better projected levels of service than with traffic signals, staff said. Residents got a chance to view the concept at an April 27 open house.

The change will increase the total purchase order to AECOM to $538,625 and add six weeks to the project schedule. Final plans are due July 20. to accommodate an anticipated 572 additional students.

The district also intends to continue with class-size reductions, to an average 20 students in kindergarten through third grade, and 26 students in fourth and fifth grade, schools Superintendent Brian V. Hightower said.

Six more schools are to be retrofitted with security foyers, new special education preschool buses will be purchased, a new GPS system for all buses will let parents track their child’s bus online, and $3 million will be spend upgrading English and Language Arts elementary school instructional resources for the first time in a decade.

The full budget is to be released later this month, with public hearings June 6 and 15 and a school board vote June 15. Cherokee has 41 public schools and learning centers, 4,500 employees and more than 41,000 students.

Information: http://bit.ly/2qMGWHl program, an updated entry with an automatic entrance, additional bathrooms and an art addition. The work was funded by the county’s SPLOST VI penny sales tax program.

The center serves adults age 50 and older with a variety of programs including art, music, continuing education and technology as well as recently added congregate and respite for caregivers programs.