Baxter Engineer Tom Bennett said the relocation and expansion of Ditty Road moving forward.
Bennett said the project is nearly finished, with crews now focusing on final connections.
“All that work is complete,” Bennett said, “The relocation of the utilities. Of course Rogers Group and TDOT is in there doing all the work. They basically have that road built all the way down to where it’s tied into the old Ditty Road.”
Bennett said the water utility work should be entirely complete by the end of the month. He said a major tie-in for Portobello is scheduled for Wednesday morning, which will be followed by several shorter service outages in the area to finalize the system.
“You’re starting to see the real to me the part that’s that’s great is the fact that Baxter Road’s going is getting widened,” Bennett said. “That’s a serious expenditure that would have otherwise been on you know, solely on your shoulders. And you’re starting to see now the widening of that.”
Bennett said the road project is being inspected by the state but will eventually become a city-maintained route. He said the construction has involved massive undercutting of solid rock to ensure a stable foundation for the expanded thoroughfare.
“If you go out there and take a look at it you’ll see you’re starting to sort of envision what that’s going to start looking like and then that’s going to tie into the interchange improvement,” Bennett said. “So it’s going to, you know, these next few years out there are going to that’s all going to look very different.”
The board discussed the future of the “old” Ditty Road, which will be cut off from Baxter Road by a guardrail and a ditch once the new section opens. Bennett said the city needs to consider the long-term disposition of that old pavement, suggesting it could remain a viable access road for nearby properties or be secured with a gate.