Start of city project is not as early as anticipated

The much publicized closing of 20th Street N.E. scheduled to have taken place Monday has been delayed.
Cairo City Manager Chris Addleton told The Messenger Tuesday he anticipates the road being closed to thru traffic later this week.
“We had said it would be closed effective Monday, but that just didn’t happen. We had done a good job of communicating it, but that’s just not how projects like these go,” Addleton said.
The city manager says that pipe to be used on the project has not arrived, but he has been told it would be arriving later this week.
Preliminary work including some surveying was taking place Tuesday, but motorists still had access to Eastside Elementary School.
Although the road has not yet been closed, it will be closed and traffic flow in the neighborhood will be impacted for as much as 180 days.
The project includes the replacement of the current roadbed, widening of the street, sidewalks, curb & gutter, piping the ditches, as well as resurfacing the street and painting new striping.
The low bidder on the project was Scruggs Company of Valdosta, which bid $768,963.49. The project is being funded with proceeds from the 2008 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST).
And while the 20th Street N.E. project is not going full steam, the first phase of a multiyear resurfacing project for city streets is well underway.
Crews from Oxford Construction Company have been rolling through northwest Cairo and will soon move to the southwest section and on around as 7.22 miles of city streets in extremely poor condition are resurfaced.
City Manager Addleton says that over the next three years the city is planning to resurface approximately 25 miles of the roughly 80 to 85 miles of streets in Cairo.
Oxford hopes to be finished with the paving before Thanksgiving and Addleton is optimistic they can.
Phase I of the resurfacing master plan is costing $648,805.30 and this project is also being funded with SPLOST proceeds.