The Chapel Hill Town Council recently took action on the Elliott Road Extension project, advancing the long-standing measure to improve traffic congestion.

Roadway improvements within the Blue Hill District area were approved by the town council in 2011. The first phase was completed with improvements to the Ephesus Church Road and Fordham Boulevard intersection, but the second phase to extend Elliott Road has stalled.

The extension, which is estimated to potentially carry 7,800 vehicles each day, would connect Fordham Boulevard to Ephesus Church Road from the existing South Elliott Road and end in a roundabout.

The town council’s actions on Wednesday came after staff had rebid the construction project again. Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger spoke to 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck about why this happened and why it benefited the town.

“Construction costs had gone up really high [since the project’s start],” she said, “much more than we projected. When we got the bids back in January, we weren’t very pleased. We knew construction costs had come down in the last few months, so we took the opportunity to rebid the project and see if there were any cost savings, [which] there were.”

An early projection of the Elliott Road Extension. (Photo via the Town of Chapel Hill.)

The town is slated to save around $650,000 on the project cost, which is good because there are other financial challenges the project faces. In addition to increases in construction costs, the project’s budget has been decreased as the town allocated those funds to construct other projects.

According to Hemminger, it puts the town in a difficult spot to determine how to cover the estimated $3.8 million funding gap.

“We don’t have that amount of money saved up currently to pay for this road,” she said, “but we will be able to reimburse ourselves. We do have funds in our debt fund we can borrow from in the meantime, or we can go out and finance it since interest rates are low right now.”

At this recent meeting, the town council unanimously approved moving forward with Conti Enterprises, Inc. to build the road extension. Town staff will return to council with financing approvals for the project in the fall.

Photo via the Town of Chapel Hill.

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