State DOT board chairman Mike Evans delivered more than words when he spoke to the White County Chamber of Commerce's annual Eggs and Issues breakfast on Tuesday morning.

He also gave Helen officials a $200,000 check to build a new pedestrian bridge over the Chattahoochee River in the heart of the Alpine city.

“Thank you for the walking bridge, and I'm sure glad your mommy and daddy live in Helen,” city commissioner Helen Wilkins told Evans, garnering chuckles from a packed meeting room of more than 80 attendees at West Family Restaurant.

The pedestrian bridge is apparently one of the few road projects in the fast lane for White County. Evans, a Cumming developer and former state legislator, noted that more than 500 DOT projects had been postponed because of the DOT's $7 billion shortfall. The financial problems have pushed back the long-awaited Cleveland bypass, which now has a 2014 completion date rather than 2010. The DOT started meeting with property owners last week to discuss buying right of way for the $32 million project.

“It (the Cleveland bypass) will absolutely, positively happen, I'm going to see that it does,” Evans told the White County News. “I have promised Ben (state Rep. Ben Bridges) I would make sure that road gets built.”

Local businessman Keith Alexander asked Evans how the DOT prioritizes projects, saying with tongue-in-cheek that the Cherokee Indians started asking for a “trail” around Cleveland when they were here.

Evans said a lot of it depends on how badly local people want a road. He also said environmental and utility relocation issues hold up a lot of projects.

Funding is available for buying right-of-way but not yet for construction of the bypass.

County commissioner Joe Campbell asked Evans what property owners along the bypass route are supposed to do since the DOT has told them years ago not to develop the land and yet the bypass is still seven years away.

Evans said he would like to ensure that projects happen more quickly.

Retiree Frank Edwards asked Evans, half-jokingly, whether anyone calls him a liar because of all the promises DOT can't keep.

He conceded they did.

The important thing, said Evans, is that the DOT learns to communicate with taxpayers, and to stop its habit of over-promising and under-delivering. He recalled a DOT board meeting at Unicoi State Park when he was first elected and realizing there was no way to afford the projects planned. “We had promised so much we couldn't deliver,” said Evans. That's why, Evans said, he has set up a Web site, www.whatsthebigidea.us, with a county-by-county browser to give communities an accurate status of their local projects.

One thing Evans did promise Tuesday was to help the city of Cleveland with improvements to the downtown square. He said the DOT will help fund some pedestrian crosswalks on the square and donate new overhead arms for traffic lights once existing power poles are removed. “We want to give downtown a pedestrian-friendly feel,” said Evans.

Evans told the News that the DOT will continue to study the creation of a four-lane corridor from White County to Ga. Hwy. 400 despite protests from Lumpkin County commissioners.

Under public pressure, Lumpkin commissioners voted unanimously two weeks ago to reject the four-lane idea and asked the DOT to drop it. White County commissioners had spent $50,000 studying the proposal, first drafts of which include widening Sandy Flats Road in White County and three more roads in Lumpkin before connecting to Ga. 400.

Evans said he's not yet gotten the letter from Lumpkin commissioners, but has read the Dahlonega Nugget's article about it. He said the DOT will keep pressing forward to try to find some common ground. He said he's told Lumpkin officials he doesn't believe their fears that more people would bypass Dahlonega would ever be realized.

And even as he delivered the check for Helen's pedestrian bridge, he noted the city's existing bridge is in pretty bad shape and may need replacing.

Evans told the News he hopes eventually to fund another long-range project, the widening of U.S. 129 between Cleveland and Gainesville, because of the increase in traffic and businesses along the corridor.

“The fact that White County doesn't have a four-lane road still needs to be addressed,” said Evans.

Asked about the proposed Interstate 3, Evans was non-committal, only noting the route and saying the interstate system is about finished.

Asked about bike paths, Evans said that even though he's a devoted cyclists, he thinks narrow bike paths on the side of highways are a complete waste of money. He said he'd rather see off-road trails like the Silver Comet Trails in the metro area.

Evans, who is the son of Jerry and Kay Evans of Helen, said he considers White County his second home.

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