GULF SHORES, Ala. — As the crowds will attest as the second big holiday week of the summer season is here and so is the traffic.

“Traffic is going to become, if it not already is, one of our bigger issues in our surrounding community as well,” Mayor Robert Craft said. “All of us are concerned about traffic and making sure we understand what options we have and pursue them as aggressively as possible.”

With that in mind, the Gulf Shores City Council OK’d paying just more than $13,000 to Skipper Consulting to conduct traffic studies for “planning future transportation projects to address current and future transportation demands are critical to the viability of Gulf Shores” according to a city memo.

In other action June 24 the council OK’d the site plan for the new Acme Oyster House with a provision that the company pay just more than $15,000 toward the building of an eight-foot walkway parallel to the Intracoastal Waterway, between the water and the new restaurant. If the city does not use the funds to construct the sidewalk within five years it must pay the money back to Acme.

The council also commissioned an Auburn University economics professor to do an economic impact study on the Hangout Music Festival and OK’d three liquor licenses, two for retail sales and one for a restaurant.

The Skipper study, officials said, will focus on the three main roads in town, north-south Alabama 59, Alabama 182 or the beach road and Alabama 180, also called Fort Morgan Road.

“This is to take a look at our current infrastructure and look at our improvements we’ve already undertaken with the signal improvements and how it’s going to improve traffic flow,” Public Works Director Mark Acreman said. “It’s evaluating in year five and year 10 additional infrastructure improvements.

“We’ve been talking about extensions to the Foley Beach Express, possibly widening Alabama 59 and access management. There are a variety of options being discussed for long-term projects and comparing them to our infrastructure, seeing how they can be used to give us some additional growth potential in that corridor.”

The first step in the study will be to look at how the traffic flows now.

“What we’re looking at is what our current traffic flows are and looking at our growth potential, making sure we have the capacity to handle that,” Acreman said.

The aim of the study is identify projects which will manage the projected growth in the city in the next five and 10 years.

“A couple of these new projects have been discussed and that helps us prioritize these projects,” Acreman said. “They’re also going to put some dollar amounts against some of these projects so we can see what kind of magnitude we are talking about.

“A lot of these are large-scale DOT projects that can have a definite positive impact on the area. We’ll be looking at what’s already been approved as far as projects as well as growth potential.”

Also the study will consider the impact of an extension of the Foley Beach Express to Alabama 182 or beach road, and the 20th Avenue extension toward Orange Beach to relieve the bottleneck at Canal Road and East Second Street.

“These are long, long term ideas,” Acreman said. “Some access management and additional traffic signal upgrades in looking at all those projects.”

For the Hangout impact study, the council chose Keivan Deravi from Auburn for $12,500. They were also considering a $9,000 bid from retired South Alabama professor Semoon Chang.

The study will not only cover Gulf Shores, but the effect on economics for the entire region from the festival. “That’s been a number we’ve been trying to wrap our hands around for some time,” Financial Director Cindy King said.

On the liquor licenses, Seaside Liquor 2 transferred its license from 1320 Gulf Shores Parkway to the old Brewster’s location at 316 E. Beach Blvd.

The Dollar General story at Alabama 59 and County Road 10 in the Gulf Shores police jurisdiction was OK’d for a license to sell beer and wine.

And GooRoo’s Grill is opening a second location by taking over the old Bella Luna location on Alabama 59 in Gulf Shores. This is also the former Big O’s Seafood. GooRoo’s other location is in Robertsdale.