Arrow Drive pathway lighting project beginning soon

By Randy Bell

Clintonians who like to exercise on the multi-use path along Arrow Drive will soon find it a little safer to do so at night. Work will begin soon on the first phase of a project to place bollard lights along the path which runs from Pinehaven Drive to Traceway Park.

A Meridian company is being paid $317,197.80 to install the first seventy of the lights from Pinehaven to the west side of Clinton High School. The Board of Aldermen approved the contract with R&W Electric Company at its August 15 meeting. The lights are three-and-a-half- to four-feet high and will be spaced about thirty-seven feet apart. The project is being paid for with money left over from $1 million in legislative funding, which also covered the cost of repaving Northside Drive.

“We will probably be able to start, hopefully, by the middle of September,” says Consulting City Engineer Bill Owen. The work is expected to take four to five months to complete and will cover one-third of the pathway’s entire length.

“We’re hoping to be able to submit an application to MDOT to fund the remaining one hundred forty lights,” Owen says. “If the Board chooses to move forward with it, the applications are due October 2. MDOT will likely let everyone know [who got] the awards sometime in February.”