A project aimed at repairing Herbert Street will delayed at least three weeks.

At Thursday night’s meeting, the Demopolis City Council learned that no bids were submitted for engineering services on the project, which will repair a collapsing concrete culvert under the street, which has forced officials to close one lane.

In January, Public Works Director Mike Baker said he had received a $43,000 estimate for the repairs.

On Thursday, City Clerk Sam Gross said she had contacted five engineering companies about the project, but failed to receive a bid before the deadline.

The council voted to re-open the bid and extend the deadline to noon on March 5.

On Thursday, the council also tabled any action on a project to replace the traffic lights at the intersection of Pettus, Front and Arcola streets rather than accepting the only bid submitted.

The council elected to look into the possibility of adding turn signals, which was not included in the original bid specifications, to improve the flow of traffic.

“There’s been some discussion about directional arrows because we have this street that’s at a 45-degree angle coming off that makes it kind of hard to figure out what you’re doing on a left hand turn if you’re going east and turning on Arcola. An arrow will eliminate that,” said council member Charles Jones.

Demopolis Police Chief Tommie Reese was in favor of adding a directional arrow to prevent traffic from becoming clogged at the intersection.

In order to include a directional arrow the bid specifications would need to be altered, according to Gross.

The council will seek input from the Alabama Department of Transportation about how best to direct traffic flow along the route before deciding whether or not to alter the bid specifications.

The next council meeting is scheduled for March 5 at 5:15 p.m. at Rooster Hall.