By David A. Farrell, Item Staff Writer
The Picayune Item
PICAYUNE —
Are you tired of traffic congestion on U.S. Highway 11 North from Hobolochitto Creek north to the entrance to Hide-Away Lake at Lakeshore Drive? It’s probably the busiest, most congested corridor in the city.
Help is supposed to be on the way, but be patient. It won’t happen until 2013.
Keith Steel, a district pre-construction engineer with the Mississippi Deppartment of Transportation, said the contracts on the $10 million project to recast the highway’s design and layout into a modern four-lane thoroughfare are not due to be let until January 2013.
“Construction on the project itself should start in the Spring of 2013 after bids are let,” said Steele. The project will rework a 2-mile section of the highway from the foot of Boley Creek bridge north to the Lakeshore Drive entrance to Hide-Away Lake.
In connection with initiating the project, an “open forum public meeting” sponsored by MDOT is scheduled for Tuesday from 4 to 6:30 p.m. at the Margaret Reed Crosby Memorial Library.
The hearing is being held to let residents affected by the project voice their opinions and ideas on it. “Residents,” said Steele, “can come and go at will, and if they need help in understanding the plans and project, I, along with some other associates, will help explain it to them. If they would like to register a comment or submit a written statement, they can do that also.”
The project calls for turning U.S. Hwy. 11 North into a four-lane thoroughfare with a 16-foot raised grass medium, said Van Vincent, an environmental location engineer with MDOT. It will also be curbed and guttered.
Vincent said there are no plans to do any work south of the Boley Creek bridge to Canal Street, although the environmental study also looked at that stretch in its study. “There are no monies appropriated for that extension of the project,” he said. “In addition there is no new monies for replacement of the bridge.”
This is the first major reworking of the U.S. Hwy. 11 North stretch of highway in almost 50 years. In the early 1950s, the highway was rerouted from Circle Drive to its present route over Boley Creek. It was later modified into a three lane route with a middle turning lane.
Steele said that MDOT officials will have on display aerial maps that will show the displacement of the highway and how it will affect the properties along the route.
