Ringgold prepares wish list for road resurfacing program

The city of Ringgold prioritized a list of roads it would like to resurface with funding it’s applying for through the Chattanooga-hamilton County/ North Georgia Transportation Planning Organization (TPO).

During the first City Council meeting of the year on Jan. 14, Ringgold officials agreed to apply for the organization’s Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), which helps fund needed roadwork.

City Manager Dan Wright explained that as part of the organization, Ringgold can apply for the program and potentially get a lot of roads resurfaced while only being on the hook for a fraction of the cost.

“They (TPO) have allowed or opened up a process to amend the TIP program, so we put together a list of streets that meet the functional classification,” Wright said. “It took several years to get these particular streets added to that functional classification.”

The TIP includes state and local roadway, bridge, bicycle, pedestrian, safety and public transportation (transit) projects.

Wright said he and Public Works Director Mike Cagle compiled and prioritized the list of roads to include in the application.

“Those streets are Tennessee Street from High Street to Ooltewah-ringgold Road because from High down to Nashville Street is state route that is part of the bypass,” Wright said. “Then, you have Robin Road; the entire road qualifies, South Sparks Street from Nashville Street to Lafayette Street. Then, Emberson Drive; the entire street is covered, and then Candy Lane from the old portion by Wendy’s going up to where we started that extension, which is about 1,000 feet on the most western end; and then Cotter Street.”

Wright also explained how the finances would work, stating that the city might only have to pay 20 percent of the cost.

“We have the ability to leverage 80 percent of federal dollars on these if we can get these included in this particular year’s TIP, and then the city would have to pay the 20 percent,” Wright said. “We don’t need to include South Depot Street, so that would reduce that 20 percent match if we wanted to include all those in there.”

Wright said the city’s portion of the proposed streets would be $123,970, with the total coming in at approximately $619,851.

The council unanimously approved authorizing Mayor Nick Millwood to sign off on the application, which covers 2020, 2021 and 2022.

During the discussion, Councilman Larry Black asked about how the roads were prioritized, and Wright said Tennessee Street was at the top of the list.

“We listed these in the order of priority as we came up with them and Tennessee Street would be first primarily because of the traffic volume,” Wright said.