RFQP - Connect Athens

The Athens-Clarke County Unified Government (ACCGov) is seeking qualified consultants to provide planning services for the Connect Athens project. This initiative is funded by an $800,000 Planning Grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods (RCN) Grant Program, with a total project budget of $1,000,000 including local match. Planning Grants fund the study of removing, retrofitting, or mitigating an existing facility to restore community connectivity; conduct public engagement, and other transportation planning activities. Capital Construction Grants are to carry out a project to remove, retrofit, mitigate, or replace an existing eligible facility with a new facility that reconnects communities.

Connect Athens is an RCN planning project aimed at identifying short- and long-term recommendations to address transportation inequities and enhance connectivity for the Hawthorne Avenue, Alps Road, and Oglethorpe Avenue corridors, which contain the historic Brooklyn community and are located in a Persistent Poverty County and overlapping with Areas of Persistent Poverty and Historically Disadvantaged Communities. Recommendations should promote quality of life, prosperity, and stability for legacy community members amid county-wide concerns over displacement and gentrification.

The project will require robust, culturally sensitive community education and engagement to arrive at concepts and recommendations that are widely championed by the community and elected officials. The planning process should position the resulting recommendations and conceptual designs as best as possible for implementation through Capital Construction Grants and/or other means.