Athens T-SPLOST panel narrows candidate projects; committee stresses limits of available funds

Commissioners received an update on the T-SPLOST (transportation special-purpose local-option sales tax) project list that city staff presented as the final candidates for the 2026 allocation cycle.

Randy summarized the committee's work and figures, saying the committee cut the full list to fit an allocation goal near $60 million while acknowledging roughly $200 million in identified needs citywide. "It's seeing that of the $200,000,000 for the overall T-SPLOST, we were only allowed to divvy out $60,000,000," Randy said.

The final candidate list includes items ranging from bridge repairs and pavement management to bicycle and pedestrian projects such as College Station protected bike lanes and the North Avenue Loop bridge replacement (phase 1). The committee also added a $6 million allocation toward the Vision Zero safety action plan and listed the Barnett Shoals crossroads safety project among prioritized safety investments.

Randy and other staff noted the committee confronted trade-offs: some projects in the long list were general pavement or lifecycle items that historically appear in T-SPLOST budgets, while other candidate projects were discrete safety or active-transportation investments. Commissioners discussed opportunities to leverage repaving windows to add bike lanes and said that while some repaving was routine, it could still yield incremental bike-ped improvements.

Staff said the candidate list will move to the next public input and review phases, and that the broader set of projects outside the $60 million allocation remains a funding challenge. The commission did not take a vote on individual projects at this meeting.