The City of Troy is continuing its path toward completing the Downtown Plan approved in 2017 with an application for the replacement of sidewalks along Murphree Street.

The council unanimously approved to seek an application for grant funding from the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) for a $572,000 project to replace sidewalks on Murphree Street from Hillcrest to South College Street.

Tim Ramsden, engineer, said the project falls in line with the city’s plan to revamp downtown sidewalks. This is the latest in a series of Transportation Alternative Program (TAP) grants that the city has requested or gotten.

The city has already had grants approved for projects including the replacement of sidewalks downtown which was completed this year, construction of sidewalks on the Enzor Road connector project roads which is going on now, the construction of a multi-use path for bikes and pedestrians that would connect Troy University to Downtown Troy, and the replacement or creation of sidewalks along Elm Street.

The City of Troy would pay for approximately $115,000 of the project if it is approved.

Ealier in the council meeting, Derrick Brewster, associate dean at Troy University, spoke to the council about the plan for a bike share program on campus beginning in the fall that would allow students to traverse campus and travel to downtown areas.

“A lot of institutions of higher education are implementing these kinds of programs,” Brewster said. “We would have 150 bikes available to students. The students would be charged 50 cents per ride.”

The bikes are equipped with a solar-powered GPS that allow students to find nearby bikes on an app use them as needed.

Brewster said this is a pilot program that he hopes will extend beyond the campus to the community.

Local resident Margie Florence Barrow came before the council to address concerns that her family member, Bobby Tremain Barrow, is not getting justice after he was fatally shot on April 7 on Hanchey Street.

“He was shot in cold blood; we should not have to bury him. We love him,” Barrow said.

Barrow described the man that shot Barrow, who has not been named by police, as a drug dealer that runs a “crack house” in the area. She said the shooting was not self defense.

District Attorney Tom Anderson said that this shooting, as well as another fatal shooting the weekend before, are both being investigated and that evidence could show that each of the shooters was acting in self-defense.

Both investigations are going to be presented to a grand jury for review on whether to charge the shooters with a crime, he said.

The council also took care of a clerical error in a contract on a utilities project and declared next week as municipal clerks week.

Mayor Jason Reeves also appointed Lyndsay Cox Taylor to replace Ross Jinright on the Planning Commission.

The Council will meet again on Tuesday, May 8 at City Hall. The executive committee will meet upstairs at 4 p.m. and the council will convene at 5 p.m. in the City Council Chambers