The City of Jacksonville received an update on the potential West Douglas project last night.
Project Manager Jim Burke of Hutchison Engineering presented a role map of West Douglas from Prairie to Caldwell as well as several charts displaying various community feedback.
Burke talked about some of the input he’s received from public meetings and questionnaires.
“Everybody recognizes the street’s in a substantial state of disrepair as far as ride-quality goes, so everybody wants to have something done to the street. The overwhelming majority would like to see it stay brick, the overwhelming majority feels that it should be the city’s responsibility to acquire funding and to handle the cost of the construction of the project. I’ve been looking into the possibility of some potential grant funding. There’s not a lot out there for a project like this, so if the city were to choose to pursue the project, we’d have to be looking at probably a staged project over a number of years,” says Burke.
Since the first meeting in June, Burke and Hutchison Engineering have been working on a feasibility study to measure the potential cost of the project. Burke shared details of some of the changes that have come up since the original meeting.
“One of the things we’ve been doing since our last meeting is working with the Department of Transportation. There’s been some changes in the design criteria both for reconstruction using brick and with the inclusion of motor field tax or federal funds, as well as, if we were looking into an overlay potentially, what the impacts may be,” says Burke.
According to Burke, Hutchison Engineering has received a few more questionnaires since the June meeting, yet notes that the feedback “largely has remained unchanged.”