Travel on West Peachtree Avenue will soon be smoother after the Foley City Council approved road repairs. The council voted to fix the road near Foley Airport last week. Jeff Phillips, the city construction projects manager, explained that collapsed metal storm drainage pipes buried alongside the road had damaged the street.

Work has already begun with the installation of the first concrete units to replace the old metal culverts.

Instead of just patching the damaged areas, the council decided to dig up and replace most of the old metal culverts in the area.

Mayor Ralph Hellmich said replacing the metal pipe with concrete will prevent city crews from having to come back and dig up the system again.

“By going to the concrete, which is really what should be used there, this should be a permanent fix,” Hellmich said. “Some of the metal pipes lasted longer than they said it would last, but this would be more of a permanent fix.”

The mayor said crews have had to dig up damaged pipes and replace parts of the drainage system on West Peachtree Avenue in the past.

“Since I've been on the council, we've done two repairs,” Hellmich said. “Between Cedar Street and where this one is, it’s buried very, very deep here. But it's a critical piece of the drainage for the Live Oak area.”

Hellmich said that if the city did not repair the entire system, new pipes would be connected to older metal pipes, which could cause other failures near the connections.

“Since we've already fixed sections, this will finish it to the airport property outfall,” Hellmich said. “That's great. We’ve also looked downstream of that, and we're in pretty good shape.”

The project will involve replacing 570 feet of 54-inch metal pipe with concrete pipes.