OKTIBBEHA COUNTY — Next week a big change will be coming to Highway 25 and Longview Road, an intersection south of Starkville infamous for traffic accidents.
After a traffic study was conducted by the Mississippi Department of Transportation, engineers determined a restricted crossing u-turn (RCUT), or a j-turn is needed. A temporary directional median will be installed Tuesday at the intersection as MDOT engineers get the final form of the RCUT prepared for installation.
“Motorists entering (Highway) 25 off Longview Road will only be able to make a right hand turn to go north or south,” a press release from MDOT reads. “Motorists must merge into the left lane and make a left turn or u-turn at the nearest median crossover to go in the direction they intend to travel. Motorists on (Highway) 25 will still be able to turn left in both directions to go west or east on Longview Road.”
In November 2022, a school bus and a sedan were involved in a wreck at the intersection, which prompted District 4 Supervisor Bricklee Miller, whose district includes the intersection, to call Northern District Transportation Commissioner John Caldwell.
Caldwell already had engineers looking at fixes, as he previously told The Dispatch it had been on MDOT’s radar for its wrecks prior to that collision.
Miller previously told The Dispatch said a majority of the collisions at the intersection have been far-side collisions where people are crossing over Highway 25 from Longview Road and are hitting the cars broadside.
Caldwell said Wednesday the directional median will be the same thing as the final RCUT, but the RCUT will be more refined. There is no time frame yet for how long the planning and design of the RCUT will take but Caldwell said the process is ongoing.
“It’s not going back to what it was,” Caldwell told The Dispatch. “… We started having the traffic engineers look at it over a year ago, so they’ve been working on what the permanent solution should be. … It prevents the t-bone type of crashes. It’s common, but it takes an adjustment for the people who have been driving that intersection over the years.”
In 2017, rumble strips — grooved patterns on the pavement to alert drivers to a hazard — and signs were installed by MDOT to reduce traffic accidents in that area. Caldwell previously told The Dispatch the rumble strips did well for a short time, but MDOT had to find a better more permanent solution for the high traffic area for impatient drivers.
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