It’s been 13 years since the last time the city of Starkville overlaid Main Street, and Mayor Lynn Spruill said it was obvious in a Southeastern Conference promotional video that included a shot of the main downtown thoroughfare.
This was one reason she asked City Engineer Edward Kemp to compile a road maintenance policy, which he presented to Spruill and the board of aldermen at Friday’s work session.
“The roads that our residents and visitors travel the most are the ones that I think need to be on a shortened time schedule to keep them looking good,” Spruill said. “It’s the ‘who we are’ of our community.”
The city is responsible for improving and maintaining 128.9 miles of roads, or 268 lane miles. The roads that receive the most traffic and are most vital to connecting the city — with the exceptions of state highways, which the Mississippi Department of Transportation maintains — will receive top priority for maintenance, such as Main, Jackson and Montgomery streets, Kemp said.
In Fiscal Year 2020, which ended Sept. 30, the city spent $1 million repairing 5.09 miles of roads, including North Long Street, Edgewood Drive, Lindbergh Boulevard and Howard Road. The city plans to repair 5.51 miles in FY 2021, which Kemp said is estimated to cost about $1,133,000. The projects should go out for bid in February and March 2021 so construction can start in March and April, he said.
The city also has bond money set aside for sidewalk improvements with three goals: to create safe routes to and from schools, fill in gaps between sidewalks and build sidewalk infrastructure in neighborhoods that do not have it, Kemp said.
Examples of sidewalk additions include the entrance to the Rolling Hills neighborhood north of Garrard Road, a connection to Dollar General from the multi-use path on Louisville Street and a connection from Lincoln Green to the Social Block apartment complex north of Locksley Way.
The Louisville Street project is on Tuesday’s board meeting consent agenda, meaning it will be approved without discussion.
MDOT has been conducting a regional transportation study of Starkville, Oktibbeha County and Mississippi State University for about a year to determine where improvements could be made. MDOT is collecting a great deal of data, including traffic counts at “critical intersections and corridors,” said Robert Walker, Neel-Schaffer’s chief liaison to MDOT.
“This is trying to give y’all a tool so you can try to make the best decisions you can on prioritizing all the different transportation needs that you’ve got,” Walker said.
Engineers are working on a plan that prioritizes the future needs of bicyclists as the city continues to improve and expand its roadways and sidewalks, he said.
The transportation study has shown that the city’s buses, through the Starkville-MSU Area Rapid Transit system, are not always on time, possibly due to traffic congestion on Highway 12, Walker said.
“One thing we may look at is a bus priority system, which kind of looks like the emergency vehicle preemption systems in our traffic signals,” he said. “As those buses approach Highway 12, they would get priority to move them through and keep them on time.”
Potential state-funded ‘big project’
Spruill said she and State Rep. Rob Roberson (R-Starkville) have discussed the possibility of requesting “a big project” from the Legislature this year.
Roberson told her this year is “a good year” to request funding for such a project, Spruill said, and her preferred endeavor would be to extend Hospital Road west and connect it to Highway 25.
“We need to have something to take to the Legislature by the beginning or middle of December in order to pre-file (legislation) and get in front of anything the Legislature is going to do,” Spruill said. “Another element to this is that we need to all agree. We need to be unanimous in order for us to be successful in getting the funding.”
Kemp is a building construction science lecturer at MSU, and two years ago he assigned students to develop preliminary plans for the project, but he would have to develop them further if the aldermen decide to bring the request to the Legislature.
Ward 7 Alderman Henry Vaughn said he wanted the city to do something to better control traffic on Highway 182. Spruill said the $12.66 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to improve a mile of Highway 182 should “take care of that.”
She said the board will discuss potential projects again at the next work session on Oct. 16.
Tess Vrbin was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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