Bowling Green City Commission holds specially called meeting to discuss public works projects among other topics

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – The Bowling Green City Commission held a meeting in place of their normal meeting that’s set to take place on April 7th, where they discussed a couple of public works projects.

The first involves approving the submission of a grant application to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s Highway Contingency Fund for $100,000.

This would help to fix the sinkhole currently open on Cambridge Way near Grinstead Way, and that amount may not even cover the full cost of repairs.

“It could be north of $200,000 to repair that. We’re going to have to repair the road. We’re going to have to dig down, bring in some rock, do a bunch of stuff… and hopefully we’ll get that fixed as quick as we can. That is at least a 30 day repair, could go up to 45 days. But right now, the crew is doing great,” Public Works director Andy Souza says.

He also explained how things work once they fill that hole up: a way to check and make sure everything is good.

“We will hook up to a fire hydrant and pour as much water onto that thing as possible to make sure that we found what’s called the throat. Think of it as a bathtub. We want to find the plug in the bathtub. That’s how we know we have this repaired… and then from there, we’ll back ourselves out with textile materials, various sizes of big rock, little rock, cover it up with soil and then put some grass seed on it and you will never know. We’ll repave the road, and hopefully that will be a good fix for a long, long time,” he says.

The second project involves an intersection that many people use to get to and from work each day.

Turning right from Lehman Avenue onto Covington Street or left from Covington onto Lehman is almost a 90 degree angle. That’s why public works is making this intersection a top priority, because they want to make sure that drivers are able to turn onto each street safely.

“A lot of folks end up usually bringing a tire up over the curb, and it’s just… it’s a tight turn. So we’re going to fix that… and so sort of a natural question would be why haven’t we fixed it already? If it was an easy fix, we would have done it. So that required us with our in-house engineers to sort of make a design for it, de-conflict utilities there. There’s a storm drain that’s there, so we have to relocate curb and gutter and storm drain… and also we’re encroaching on some private property. So we also have to do the legal part of reaching out to a homeowner who has been very gracious in this case, helping us approving everything that we’ve sort of proposed already, and between a public/citizen partnership will make that turn a reality as quick as we can get it done,” he says.

The project is estimated to take around 3 to 4 months to complete.

Another topic discussed is the city accepting a tax-exempt loan of $3,100,000 to purchase a property located at 940 Bryant Way. Officials say this project will be the site of a new police substation. News 40 will keep you updated as we learn more.