By Jessie Burchette
jburchette@salisburypost.com
Federal stimulus money could pay for a redo of the Klumac Road rail crossing off South Main Street.
Gov. Beverly Perdue has included the project on a list of “project ready” applications from across the state. Perdue is seeking $92.6 million funds for high-speed rail projects.
Perdue is seeking $8.4 million for the Klumac project.
Salisbury officials are elated that Perdue is seeking funding for the project.
“We are very happy, it’s a project the city of Salisbury supports and would like to see done,” Dan Mikkelson, director of engineering, said Tuesday.
The Klumac project has been on the drawing board and talking stage for more than a decade.
During a rail corridor study in the early 1990s, the Klumac crossing was identified as one requiring a grade separation of the tracks and street.
Initially, the N.C. Department of Transportation proposed a realignment that would have taken a large portion of Johnson Concrete.
In August 2003, the Salisbury City Council requested the state make changes in the design that won’t impact Johnson Concrete or other existing businesses.
Under the revised plan, a new section road will extend from the current intersection of Mooresville Road (N.C. 150) and South Main Street. The road will cross under the railroad tracks and go across a vacant parcel behind Johnson Concrete, cross Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and go into Klumac south of Kentucky Street.
The section of new road will include curb and gutter along with sidewalks on both sides. Improvements are proposed at the intersection of U.S. 29 and N.C. 150, and new intersections are proposed at MLK Avenue and Kentucky Street.
In order to dig the underpass, the railroad tracks will be temporarily moved to a new roadbed along old South Main Street ( the section of street running beside the tracks).
Once the underpass is constructed, the tracks will be restored to the current location.
All of the projects targeted for stimulus money must be carried out in two years.State officials said previously that they are seeking stimulus funds to restore two sets of railroad tracks through Rowan County and other areas of the rail corridor across the state.
The Salisbury City Council is set to award a contract Tuesday afternoon for construction of a section of Grants Creek Greenway. The city received $300,000 in stimulus money.
Some other city projects failed to get stimulus funding. These included repair of the Bank Street bridge and the Fisher Street bridge.