BERLIN — Berlin leaders are hoping the state’s gas tax-funded paving program will be the ticket to beefing up road infrastructure around the town’s municipal property.

At its regular meeting Monday, the Berlin Town Council signed off on making the intersection of Mt. Carmel Drive and County Road 1614 the focus of its application next year for a share of the state’s annual allotment of Rebuild Alabama road funds. The project would benefit from an infusion of up to $250,000 in state-allotted road money from the Rebuild Alabama program — if, that is, the state selects Berlin’s proposal as a funding recipient for 2022.

In addition to paving both roads, Berlin’s proposal calls for reconfiguring the intersection where Mt. Carmel Drive and County Road 1614 meet, an angular turn-off that also accommodates traffic along County Road 1615, which currently serves as the access road to the Berlin Town Hall.

The project would afford easier access to both the town hall and the Berlin Farmers Market on Mt. Carmel Drive, while also laying the groundwork for the town to install a second point of access on the north side of the town hall property in the more distant future.

Berlin mayor Patrick Bates told the council that preliminary research suggests the town would not have to pay significant additional costs to move the work along, should ALDOT accept the town’s proposal. “The only out of pocket [costs] would be for engineering,” he told the council, adding that the town would also have to facilitate any related right-of-way acquisitions.

The council also signed off on a resolution signaling the town’s support for a long-range ALDOT plan to widen U.S. Highway 278 from 4th Avenue in Cullman to East Point. The project is listed among the state highway department’s schedule of long-term improvements for state-maintained roads in Cullman County, but ALDOT currently has not published a timeline for when the work might begin.