The Smith County Commissioners Court members as seen during a previous meeting. Court members are are (from left) Commissioner Jeff Warr, Commissioner Terry Phillips, Judge Nathaniel Moran, Commissioner Cary Nix and Commissioner JoAnn Hampton. (Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph/File)

Smith County is moving forward with major road projects in the Bullard and Gresham areas.

The Smith County Commissioners Court approved two engineering contracts for the road projects at a regular meeting on Tuesday.

The county will pay $41,650 to KSA Engineers for engineering work on County Road 177 near Bullard, close to the baseball fields.

This engineering will lay out how to make drainage improvements on the road, according to Frank Davis, the county engineer.

The long-term plan is to make changes to the road that smooth out two 90-degree turns that are dangerous for drivers, Davis said.

“They’re going to flatten the curve,” he told the Commissioners Court. “It’ll still have a curve, but it’s not two (at an angle of) 90 degrees.”

Davis said this will involve building new roadway through a part of the nearby land, and a local family donated the land to do so.

County Judge Nathaniel Moran said he met with the mayor of Bullard almost two years ago to discuss road needs, and this project was identified as a dangerous and high-traffic area.

“This was one of the biggest needs that they talked about on that road, with the ballparks out there,” Moran said. “And it’s a danger to have both of those s-curves out there, and we need to get it smoothed out.”

In a separate project, the county will pay $29,000 to KSA Engineers for work on County Road 168 just south of Tyler city limits, near Owens Elementary School.

The county closed the road in January to address a failing culvert and replaced it with a temporary pipe, Davis said. He said the county needs to replace that with a box culvert.

“We’re also going to be reworking the intersection and the layout of the turn lanes there in front of Owens Elementary to help that traffic problem in that area,” Davis said.

Both projects are funded through the $39.5 million road bond that voters approved in November 2017, according to Davis. 

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