The Blackshear City Council will install speed tables between the historic train depot and Blackshear City Park.
The speed tables are part of upcoming improvements to city roads under the Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant (LMIG) from the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT).
The proposal was discussed at the council’s most recent work session April 1. The speed tables are geared toward addressing safety concerns, especially in regard to families with young children using the park. The speed tables are considered a better alternative to the more familiar speed bumps used to slow traffic along South Central Avenue.
A speed table is essentially a raised stretch of road between two inclines that causes a vehicle to lower its rate of travel as it moves over it. The pitch of the incline/decline generally determines what speed a vehicle will be reduced to in order to go over it. Ten miles per hour is a standard figure. Each speed table would have a raised walkway at the center allowing safe travel of pedestrians from one side of the roadway to the other.
“The main difference between this and a speed bump is even if you slow down for a speed bump, you’ll about knock your teeth out going over it,” said Blackshear Police Chief Chris Wright. “With everything we want to do with the park in the future, especially events, this was a more aesthetically pleasing option.”
Funds to install the speed table will come from extra monies disbursed to communities receiving LMIG funds. Mayor Keith Brooks specified at the work session that, unlike traditional LMIG funds, the extra funding “does not require any matching local funds, making this a win for Blackshear.”
Hofstadter and Associates, the civil engineer of record with the city, has already provided a study for the proposed addition to South Central Avenue along with their recommendation to award the bid for other LMIG improvements to the Scruggs Company.
Blackshear received $90,000 in the no-match Local Road Assistance grant. As long as the cost does not exceed the grant amount, the project will move forward. For now, the city is waiting on pricing, which would determine if the matter goes back before the council.
“There should be about $7,000 left over after the other projects are done,” said Wright. “It is hard to do any capital road improvements for less than that.”
Blackshear currently has no ordinances about where or how the location of speed bumps or other traffic deterrents are approved, leaving the placement of them up to the council’s discretion.
