On June 13, 2017, members of the MNA, meet with Regan Hammond Project Manager for Renew Atlanta and Jay Tribby from Councilmen Kwanza Hall’s office to review T-SPLOST funding for the Midtown Garden District. T-SPLOST funds have to be used on transportation related projects like roads, sidewalks, street lights, etc. All seven neighborhoods in District 2 are receiving approximately the same amount of funding between $400,000 to $450,000. Additionally, monies were allocated to the CIDs including the Midtown Improvement District (MID). The latter funding will be administered through the Midtown Alliance.
MNA President Tony Rizzuto & Master Plan Implementation Committee Members Courtney Smith and Dan Cooper presented a list of projects to Ms. Hammond and Mr. Tribby and will meet with them several more times to develop a plan for applying the funds to projects identified in the Midtown Garden District Master Plan. Ideally, the team hopes to have the budgets and contracts ready to break ground in fall 2017.
The MGD Master Plan is still working its way through committees at the city, on its way to adoption into the CDP, but was seen as the appropriate document to base the application of TSPLOST funds to as it identified several short and long term projects for neighborhood improvement. Not all of the projects identified in the Master Plan are eligible for the TSPLOST funding. Those include stormwater runoff projects that would fall under the purview of Watershed Management. Additionally, several of the projects in the Master Plan have already had other funding sources identified for them. Those include the Monroe Dr. /Boulevard complete street enhancements, Piedmont Ave. complete streets enhancements and the 10th St. crosswalk signaling project.
The team proposed exploration and estimating of the following projects.
- Improved street lighting- The area bounded by Ponce de Leon Ave., 4th street, Argonne Ave. and Myrtle St. was identified as a higher crime area in the Master Plan. Analysis indicated that poor or inconsistent lighting conditions were part of the problem.
- Improvements to Argonne Ave.- Identified as an internal thoroughfare in neighborhood in need of safety improvements, the Master Plan proposed additional traffic stop signs, speed tables, and intersection bulb outs at 7th and 5th
- Improvements to neighborhood sidewalks. Priority was given to streets with no sidewalks followed by improvements to streets identified with poor conditions on both sides and then streets with poor conditions on a single side.
ReNew Atlanta will do an analysis of the proposed projects including cost estimating and meet with the MNA team in July to determine the final extent of the projects to be implemented with the current funding source.