By David Fleet
Editor
Atlas Twp.-By a 5-0 vote on Monday night the township board of trustees voted to join the Genesee County Road Commission for an engineering and design agreement for a hard surface plan for Green Road from Ridge to Gale roads. The cost of the project is $70,000.
“There has been much discussion of the need for a hard surface on Green Road,” said Shirley Kautman-Jones, township supervisor.  “We are in the process of obtaining a traffic count and speed study on the section (of road). The last study was done in 2014 and it’s extremely high for a gravel local road.”
An estimated cost for paving Green Road according to the GCRC is $1,200,000 for that mile section. The road improvement will also require tree removal, ditching, culvert replacement and width adjustments at some point, she added
“In order to move forward, we need to have an agreement to cover the cost of the design,”she said. “If we do not move forward, we’ll have to pay the GCRC back for the design within a two year cycle.”
Trustee Berry June, along with Kautman Jones recently consulted with Fred Peivandt, GCRC managing director and Eric Johnson, GCRC director of engineering.
“We discussed doing the project in phases,” said June. “As long as we keep moving on the project they are not going to ‘back-charge’ us for the road project. Green Road is a thoroughfare road and the residents living on it are not going to benefit as much as those passing through. They should not bear the full costs for the project through a special assessment.”

The plan is just an initial step for the Green Road project, added Kautman Jones.
“We’ll have a town hall meeting regarding the road,” she said. “If there is a lot of opposition from residents, there are a lot of other road projects we can work on in the township.We need good numbers and a plan for the project. Without entering into an agreement with the road commission we can’t understand what that project is going to be.”
The road has drainage issues, she added.
“If we did any improvements to Green Road, we’d sustain design and engineering costs,” she said.
The Ridge and Green roads area will soon have a new proposed village development coming to the area soon.
“It’s a great strategic plan for the township,” she said. “We are going to have developed some kind financial plan to take this on, even if it takes several phases.”