Additional intersection closures on Highway 49 in Simpson County in the fall of 2024 were the topic of a recent meeting between Southern Transportation Commissioner Charles Busby and District Engineer Albert White and Representative Price Wallace, Senator Andy Berry, and other leaders of Simpson County.
The changes are being made in an attempt to make travel safer.
White said the intersection of Highway 49 and Highway 540 in Mendenhall will be closed. The area is generally identified by the caution lights near Puckett Body Shop. It has been a subject of concern for some time with plans being discussed on how to make the area safer. Several accidents have occurred at this point, due to the intersection being atop a hill. This intersection will be closed and J-turns will be installed at different points in the North and South bound lanes.
White said upgrades will also be made to Highway 149 to better handle the traffic from closing the 540 intersection.
The intersection at East Street, Mendenhall, will also be closed to only allow a left turn from the northbound lane. Southbound travelers will have to use a J-turn that will be put in at the bottom of the hill.
Plans also include the installation of acceleration lanes and bulb outs to assist 18-wheelers and large agricultural vehicles.
Additional plans for Magee include closing the crossing on Hwy. 49 and Siloam Road only to allow left turns and installing a stop light at the Shell station south of Siloam Road. Both areas have been scenes of accidents due to the angle of the intersections.
Work is anticipated to begin in fall 2024.
Commissioner Busby said, “The whole purpose of MDOT’s existence is to maintain the assets that we have and our infrastructure and protect the citizens. When we have situations like we have here where these intersections have posed a liability for the citizens over a long period of time, and people losing their life is totally unacceptable. We’ve got to make a move to fix these situations and that’s what this is.”
In terms of future projects, Commissioner Busby said his office is taking input from citizens, boards of supervisors and city councils all over the district, which covers 27 counties. He said they are trying to prioritize and address everything.
When asked about the challenges of funding Busby said, “We’re running a deficit of about 400 million dollars annually on maintaining a 6.5-billion-dollar asset. We’re working with the legislature now and hopefully we’ll be in a situation where they can afford to put more money into this and find the recurring revenue streams that we can depend on every year from here on out. I think we are making some strides in that direction, and we’ll see when the legislative session ends in five or six weeks how we faired.”
