The city council was asked to pump the brakes on a sewage and drainage project in west Selma in order to not add to the already crowded road projects on Cahaba Road and the Crescent Hill area.

Selma Mayor George Evans told the city council Thursday in a work session that he would encourage them to ignore all bids for the project at the upcoming council meeting Tuesday until after repaving projects finish. He said if the project moved forward now it would, “run the risk of bumping into the ATRIP [repaving] projects on Cahaba Road.”

“On Crescent Hill, that is just a drainage project there and the council has already appropriated the funds for it,” Evans said. “But because of the other projects like the bridge replacement and the repaving of Cahaba Road and Medical Center Parkway, we don’t want them to all go together.”

While the bridge on Dallas Avenue over Valley Creek is being replaced by the Alabama Department of Transportation, Cahaba Road and J.L. Chesnut Boulevard are being used as part of the detour route to and from downtown to west Selma. Evans said he feared the detour route not only being repaved but also drainage being torn out and redone all at the same time.

He wants the drainage project to commence after the repaving is completed but as of Thursday, the date for when the ATRIP repaving will begin is still unknown.

ATRIP has yet to have the pre-construction meeting in which a date will be set, but Evans has head the project will not start until, “sometime after mid-August and then maybe even after Labor Day. I have not gotten the final word, but that’s when it will probably start.”

Evans said the drainage project is not a major concern, but it was something requested by the residents, noting the public works department has already dug trenches in the Crescent Hill area.

“So hopefully the drains will be better and we can hold off on doing anything until we know for certain when the repaving will start, because Crescent Hill Road would have to be closed off for sometime if we did this,” Evans said.