By Cathy Higgins
BAY MINETTE, Ala. – A truck route could soon become part of the Bay Minette landscape.
During Monday’s meeting of the Bay Minette City Council, Mayor Jamie Tillery announced that plans are under way to bring such a project about.
“The city of Bay Minette, in answer to a long-time question involving an alternate truck route for our downtown area, would like to move forward with the assistance of the engineering services of HMR, working with the Alabama Department of Transportation and other entitites to design an effective, safe and efficient route for our truck traffic,” she said during the meeting.
To bring that about, the council approved the process of creating a proposal to submit to ALDOT.
“This proposal is for an engineering plan only,” Tillery said. “HMR will coordinate with ALDOT to study the effects and impacts on current downtown business, environmental impacts, geometric investigation, utilities and alternate alignments for traffic flow.”
She explained that the study would include such entities as law enforcement, emergency services and school traffic.
HMR Project Engineer Robbie Strom, who was on hand Monday, said he hoped to have a proposal and project design ready soon.
“When the design is received, the city of Bay Minette, as it has done in the past, will hold community meetings for citizen input before finalizing any plan to be submitted for Alabama state approval,” Tillery said. “Following the community meetings and discussion by the mayor and council, we hope to have a planned document that will successfully address the alternative truck route.”
