COLUMBUS – A couple of weeks ago, Mayor Stephen Jones sent City Engineer Kevin Stafford a photo of a car trapped under an 18-wheeler at the intersection of Main and Fifth streets.
The 18-wheeler, westbound on Main, had swung wide to make a right turn onto Fifth, Stafford said. The car, possibly not realizing the 18-wheeler was turning, continued in the right turn lane, ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Putting aside that 18-wheelers “shouldn’t have been going down Fifth to begin with,” Stafford said, it highlighted the need for greater safety measures along the downtown corridor. The sooner, the better.
“There’s always been a request to do something about the signal and the safety of the pedestrians crossing the road,” Stafford said Tuesday during a city council work session at City Hall, referring specifically to the Main and Fifth intersection.
The council next week will consider a roughly $23,000 project to install temporary safety measures along Main Street between Fourth and Seventh streets. The measures would slow down traffic and reduce the roadway space pedestrians must cross at intersections in the corridor.
Stafford said the work would mostly involve striping and installing enlarged reflectors to serve as temporary bumpouts. It could begin as soon as January, upon council approval, and would take about two days to finish, he said.
According to the plans, the outermost westbound lane between Seventh and Sixth streets would become a right-turn lane. Between Fourth and Sixth, westbound traffic flow would reduce to one through lane and one right-turn lane, with the existing right-turn lane from Main to Fifth – in front of Rosenzweig Arts Center – eliminated and converted into 12 angled parking spots.
As for eastbound traffic, there would be one through lane and one right-turn lane between Fourth and Fifth streets. Traffic would then reduce to one eastbound lane on the Fifth Street block before opening back to two lanes after the Sixth Street intersection.
Left turn lanes from both directions would remain as they are.
Temporary bumpouts at the northeast corner of Sixth and Main and at all four corners of Main and Fifth would help “separate traffic from pedestrians” and reduce pedestrian crossing distance, Stafford said. The measures aim to make it safer for parked traffic to back out and enter the roadway.
“I’ve almost been hit a couple of times in the past trying to back out in front of City Hall,” Jones told The Dispatch on Wednesday.
A study in 2017 prescribed these measures along the Main Street corridor, Stafford said, but three years later a Mississippi Department of Transportation grant instead funded the roundabout at Second Street and Main, in front of Harvey’s restaurant, because it deemed that intersection more dangerous at the time.
Now, the city is hoping a $5.8 million federal Safe Streets for All grant makes these proposed temporary measures permanent, with curb and gutter, permanent bumpouts and signal improvements. Stafford said he expects to learn in the coming months whether the city will get that grant – which would also improve safety and pedestrian/biker access along Fifth Street between Columbus Light and Water headquarters and the Magnolia Bowl.
Still, Stafford believes the temporary measures can help right away.
“Even if you get that grant, it will be two years before that money truly hits the street in construction,” Stafford said.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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