County, consultant say traffic-control failures on Bellair ARPA project will be fixed after both sides of road were briefly closed

County Engineer Jacqueline Turner briefed the board about a traffic control incident on Bellair — an ARPA-funded road project — and introduced Coington Civil Environmental, the project's consultant, to explain what happened and how the county would prevent a recurrence.

Sarah Mlen, project engineer with Coington, said the contractor was performing asphalt removal on one side of the project while also conducting conduit installation on the other. "The issue was the loading time of the trucks. It was too long and it caused traffic delays," Mlen said, and noted crews at one point closed both sides of the road before rush hour, which she called "absolutely unacceptable." She described an immediate schedule change to avoid running asphalt removal and truck loading while other work is underway and said residents must be able to get in and out safely.

Turner told supervisors that one resident filed a claim for vehicle damage (reported scraped bumpers) and that the claim had been processed by Coington and forwarded to the contractor's insurance carrier. The board asked questions and accepted the consultant's mitigation plan; no enforcement action was announced at the meeting.

The board's action was procedural: the consultant outlined changed sequencing and the county will monitor the contractor's adherence to the revised schedule and traffic-control plan. The resident's claim remains with the contractor's insurer for resolution.