Road crossing will be reworked

A Tuscaloosa engineering company has been hired to redesign the intersection of Martin and Union Chapel roads near Sokol Park.

Tuscaloosa County Commissioner Don Wallace brought the contract approval for Sentell Engineering before the commission on Wednesday, citing an immediate need to alleviate rush-hour traffic.

The commission agreed, with Commissioner Bobby Miller abstaining, to hire Sentell Engineering for $30,790 to redesign the intersection to ease traffic flow in the mornings and evenings.

Chris Sentell, a vice president for the company, said the design calls for making Martin Road the main thoroughfare and maintaining Union Chapel Road as a secondary intersection. Martin Road will get a center left-turn lane onto Union Chapel Road, and Union Chapel’s approach to Martin Road will be given a right-turn lane with a yield sign.

“It will take very little, if any, additional right of way,” Sentell said.

Wallace said he favored that design instead of another developed by the county engineering department in early 2007.

Allan Springer, the county’s assistant public works director, said the county’s design would have required relocating a mobile home at the intersection to give Union Chapel right- and left-turn lanes at the intersection. Martin Road also would have been given a right-turn lane for southbound traffic and a left-turn lane for northbound traffic.

Wallace noted that a right-of-way would have been needed behind Crosstie Supply at 1417 Martin Road E. that would have gone almost to the edge of the company’s building.

“There was no way I was going to favor taking someone’s house and basically all of someone’s property just for that,” Wallace said.

Still, the granting of the contract to Sentell was not without controversy.

Commission Chairman Hardy McCollum was skeptical of the entire process, especially since two other designs had already been done: the engineering department’s design, and another by engineering firm McGiffert & Associates, which redesigned the intersection as part of a larger, multimillion-dollar plan for the proposed Carroll’s Creek Parkway in late 2003.

Sentell’s plan was chosen over McGiffert’s because funding for the Carroll’s Creek project has yet to be secured, Wallace said.

The commission did vote to amend the contract, which originally had Sentell Engineering employees overseeing the construction. The estimated cost for that was $56,000, which county attorney Robert Spence questioned as being high.

Instead, engineering department officials will oversee the project, which is expected to cost about $420,000 and begin in five to six weeks, Wallace said.

“We will improve the traffic jam that occurs on a daily basis at Martin Road and Union Chapel Road,” Wallace said. “Hopefully, by October, we’ll have it done.”

Reach Jason Morton at jason.morton@tuscaloosanews.com or 205-722-0200.