Toccoa Moving Forward With Road Safety Projects

The city of Toccoa will move ahead with two road projects using a special state grant program.

On Monday, the Toccoa City Commission voted unanimously to approve projects for the city’s LMIG Off-System Safety Program.

LMIG stands for Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant and is money that the state provides to local communities for road work.

Toccoa City Manager Billy Morse said this particular off-system safety program was a special, one-time pool of state money designed to help communities with road projects that would increase safety and decrease fatalities.

Earlier this year, the city applied for $200,000 from this pool of money.

Morse said that the city did not get the full $200,000.

“We found out recently that we did not get the $200,000, but we were successful in getting $125,000,” said Morse. “With our match, that makes it a $162,500 project.”

City commissioners had previously approved three projects for the full $200,000.

Those were guardrail replacement on White Pine Road, handicap ramps in the south central area of Toccoa, and a new sidewalk on Franklin, South Tallulah, and South Pine streets.

However, Morse said the city has to scale its work back because of the lesser funding amount it received.

“We are recommending that the two projects that we use these funds for are replacing the guardrail on both sides of White Pine Road and then installing handicap ramps in the south central area of our community,” said Morse.

Morse said staff recommended removing the new sidewalk on Franklin, South Tallulah, and South Pine streets from this list in an effort to maximize the state money.

“We can still do the sidewalks with our crews,” said Morse. “That is the beauty of it. We have got SPLOST monies and so forth. We can use local money to do the sidewalks.”

The approved guardrail and handicap ramp projects will now have to go out to bid.

Work is expected to begin on both projects by the end of the calendar year.