Bryan Park has added space for 70 more cars following the completion of a gravel parking lot and widened the road by the outdoor basketball court, baseball and soccer fields.
The project was part of the park’s original master plan, which was created 20 years ago.
Construction began two weeks ago and finished this past week. Oglethorpe County Recreation Department director Michael White and members of the recreation department felt the project was important as Little League gets into full swing.
“It wasn't just the parking, it was also the road,” White said. “The road was a problem because it was too narrow where the road used to be for traffic to go both ways. So when stuff let out, cars would come out, and then it would just bottleneck back because you couldn't go both ways.”
Much of the traffic occurred around 6:30 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, during Little League baseball and softball games.
All of the work was completed in-house to cut costs, and the gravel was the only expense, totaling around $10,000. There are no plans to pave over the gravel.
“We did the grading part,” Public Works director Adam Nation said. “We already had the gravel stockpile here, so when we were doing the grading part, as soon as we got done with that, the last thing we did was install the pipes and then we put the gravel down that day.”
The expansion will not only improve traffic flow during sports events, but also during holiday and community events.
“It's going to make things easier to get in and out of here,” White said. “We have the Fourth of July stuff over here, and at Halloween in the park, there’s always traffic.”