By Tanna Friday
For the Tribune
ARGO— A Tropical Storm and wind advisory didn’t keep the Argo Council from pushing on with their council agenda.
As winds and rain made their way across Northeast Alabama Monday evening, the council made sure that road safety was their main concern. Items discussed included improvements to Katie Lane, Angus Drive and approval of phase one to install a vehicle detection camera at the railroad crossing on Argo-Margaret Road.
At the last meeting, speakers J.T. Murphy and Richard Caudle presented a traffic study with several road improvement recommendations for the city of Argo. Out of the five immediate improvement recommendations both Murphy and Caudle suggested the city to take action, the council approved three. Argo’s Mayor Betty Bradley reads the second recommendation for phase one:
“Vehicles, which are slowing across the railroad tracks westbound on Argo-Margaret Road must stop before crossing the railroad tracks (school buses, vehicles transporting hazardous materials) . The only direction of the traffic signal for Argo-Margaret Road is located between the railroad tracks and US 11. It is recommended that the existing traffic signal be upgraded to have a detection zone on the far side of the railroad track in order to avoid working with Norfolk Southern Railroad. It is recommended that a video detection turn will be used to implement this recommendation.”
“I recommend that the council puts this recommendation in place to prepare for the next study,” Bradley said. “We are getting more traffic, more houses are going up in Margaret and in our own city. We are getting calls from people in Margaret thinking that we can do something about [the traffic] and this is [the] recommendation for us to try and help control the traffic.”
The project is estimated to cost $8,000 to the City of Argo.
The next council meeting is scheduled for Sept. 25.
To obtain a copy of the agenda, please visit William’s Orchard, Argo Hardware, Argo Video, Shell (Argo), Southland BBQ, Fox’s Pizza and Buckeyes.