Almost all the pieces are in place to install a traffic signal at Bluecutt Road and Leigh Drive, according to city officials.

The city lacks only right-of-way to install the poles, with the bulk of the funding already in place, both City Engineer Kevin Stafford and Ward 6 Councilwoman Jacqueline DiCicco said.

The council has had plans going as far back as the previous administration to add a traffic signal at Bluecutt and Leigh, Stafford said. The area is heavily traveled and increasingly suffers from congestion at that intersection, which feeds into Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle. The post office is just to the north, two churches — First Presbyterian and First Baptist — both have drives joining Bluecutt, and traffic from Cady Hills and Heritage Academy are to the south.

Stafford said the Bluecutt area was identified as one of the city’s chief traffic problems as far back as a 2000 transportation study.

“Bluecutt has a capacity of about 10,000 vehicles per day,” he said. “It was at or near capacity then. According to (Mississippi Department of Transportation numbers) in 2010 it had 12,000 and in 2019, which was the last county they did, it was at 14,000.”

Traffic on Bluecutt itself is very high, and causes traffic on Leigh Drive to back up, he said.

“The problem at Leigh Drive isn’t so much the volume of traffic as the delay caused by cross traffic,” he said.

DiCicco, whose ward includes the intersection, said she constantly gets complaints about traffic there, and that the council had approved the work back in 2018.

“It’s really badly needed,” she said. “We have money set aside in the budget for the work, and Columbus Light and Water will cooperate with doing the work. We’re currently waiting on getting right-of-way from the family that owns the land there, and that’s almost in place.”

Stafford explained that a survey was underway to get about .25 acres to place the light poles. Previous negotiations with the owners had bogged down because the city had been looking at a land swap rather than buying the land outright, and “there were too many pieces of property on the table.”

“Right now we are getting land values on the site so we can reapproach the owners with what we need and the value we can pay,” he said.

The original plans called for the city to put the bases in place for the lights, and then CLW would install the poles and signal heads, which would save the city a lot of money, Stafford said. At that point there were some surplus poles CLW had after taking down some traffic lights that had been phased out.

Those poles ended up being used at Military and Ridge roads instead, Stafford said, which means the city would have to get the poles.

“The city approved $50,000 for the materials for this intersection,” he said. “That will get close (to the cost), but the price of poles has gone up tremendously. The wiring and the signal heads have all gone up, too.”

The $50,000 originally budgeted has been carried over every budget year, Stafford said, and the city can either take whatever the overage is out of the use tax money it receives yearly from the state or can simply amend the budgeted amount to put more in there.

The city receives money every year from the state to reflect the so-called use tax, which is the tax paid for online purchases. Stafford estimated about $700,000 in un-earmarked money in the use tax fund now, and said that the city will probably get about $1 million a year in the future.

The work is also an example of the city helping out the county, Stafford said. Bluecutt Road from Seventh Street — where Heritage Academy is — north to the intersection with Highway 45 is maintained by Lowndes County.

“The city has kind of been the driver on this whole deal,” Stafford said. “Nobody is asking for the county to pay anything. The city is moving on it because it’s something the council’s constituents want.

“The city’s not always at the county’s doorstep begging them to do things,” he added. “Leigh Drive is the city’s, and it’s the council that’s getting those calls. The council’s not going to turn a blind eye and say, ‘Call the county.’”

Lowndes County Board of Supervisors President Trip Hairston said he is “very supportive” of the project.

“Obviously it benefits everyone coming through there, as well as the people who own businesses or live on or right off of Bluecutt,” he said. “Traffic at certain times of day can be pretty rough. … When you look at the hospital employees and the patients and families coming in and out of there and the doctor’s offices on Leigh Drive, it’s a main hub of the city.”

Hairston said the city and county often cooperate in that area.

“It’s not anything where we’ve drawn a line and said, ‘You do this and we’ll do that,’” he said. “We just kind of pitch in and help. … There haven’t been any people running to their corners, and hopefully that’s not going to start.”