Widen Hardy St. or W. 4th St?

[JB2379]

Just reading the HA and found out that the U.S. Congress is looking to approve a bil that would provide $200 million in funding to Mississippi for transportation projects. As for the Hattiesburg area, if the bill is approved, Gene Taylor wants to spewnd $2.56 million to widen W. 4th St. and $640,000 to widen Hardy St. Since more people travel Hardy St. on a daily basis, shouldn't more money be spent on Hardy?
Another question: How big of a problem would widening Hardy St. pose for motorists, especially when Hardy is so busy? Also, in order for Hardy to be widened successfully wouldn't that mean having access to certain property owned by businesses and private citizens?
What do you guys think?

[aaron]

I don't really see how it could be widened. Some businesses have a parking space between them and road. Of course, it might not end up being that much if they take out the median that's there now. You take out a lot of grass, sidewalks, and trees though. In favor of concrete.

[JB2379]

to be honest with you Aaaron, I don't see how they are going to widen it either, without it being a MAJOR inconvenience for a lot of people. But the sad thing is - that road really needs to be widened. It's too narrow to be one of the most-heavily traveled roads in the city.

[noway]

to be honest with you Aaaron, I don't see how they are going to widen it either, without it being a MAJOR inconvenience for a lot of people. But the sad thing is - that road really needs to be widened. It's too narrow to be one of the most-heavily traveled roads in the city.

Heck just pave the darn thing way too many bumps:smt118

[Tully Mars]

I don't think that the money for Hardy Street is necessarily for widening. As I understand it the money will be used to implement an Intellegent Transportation System (ITS) to improve traffic flow on Hardy. It will also be used to realign several intersections such as at Ross Blvd., the intersecting street at USM's main entrance and at 31st Ave (I think...Between the gravel parking lot and Elam Arms Dormatory).

You are all correct, Hardy is as wide as Hardy is gonna get. There is very little if any room for improvement there because of the shallow setbacks of the businesses along Hardy Street. 4th Street is certainly a more viable option for widening to provide an improved East/West Corridor.
Hardy Street was not really designed to handle the volume of traffic that it currently receives. However, narrower streets with more shallow setbacks can actually be advantagous in terms of redevelopment of areas of done properly. I would assume that the original intent of the shallow setbacks, among others, was to create the same feel as the downtown streets. However, as you already know, that type of atmosphere was never really accomplished along Hardy with the exception of a few segments particularly around USM.

[Tully Mars]

By the way JB, that is a ruggedly cool new avatar.:thumbs_up :slash:

[wilebill]

They've been talking about those street realignments for some time now. I thought the money was already there. The traffic light situations suck east of I59 - this needs to be addressed immediately.

But widening 4th St. east of I59 would almost be a waste of time since USM has put all their obstacles in the way - the slower speed limits, the incredibly stupid pedestrian crossings, and the continuous construction traffic. 4th St. in the USM area should be turned into a big parking lot for USM and a bypass connecting to 7th St. should be considered.

Spending money on 4th St. east of I59 would be a waste. It's highly unfortunate that USM needs this street now as much as they do, and the citizens of Hattiesburg need an alternative to Hardy St. at the same time and 4th St. would have been that logical alternative if not for the USM situation.

[JB2379]

Thanks Tully, I just wanted to be cool. You know, I always thought that certain parts of Hardy St. resemble the downtown area. Unfortunatley, Hardy is just to important to be that narrow.

[ynotme297]

the city is going to change 34th ave@hardy. they bought a strip of land between the masonic lodge and steakout. a very small strip. paid $250000.00 for it from the masonic lodge. it will move the trafic light further west.

[Sir Mickey Mouse]

MDOT, Jackson, and Ridgeland are spending a great deal of money to implement a new traffic flow for County Line Road. For those of you who don't know that area, County Line has large hotels, the big businesses, and Northpark Mall. Traffic literally stops at certain times of day. Now, they are making County Line a blvd., taking away the center turning lane, and controlling access and crossing points. They say it will help a lot, but people are going to have to really get used to the change. Maybe our leaders should watch that project and possibly do the same with Hardy.

[ynotme297]

my bad, not 34th, its the street there at barnhills. forgot the name

[Buggy]

The street just to the west of Barnhill's is Ross Blvd.

[Tully Mars]

I appreciate all you, before, after, and including Tully, for helping make my point regarding the need for strategic planning and re-thinking the current MDOT plan on city limits portion of South 49. We need our Admin to use the "FIVE-P's" Principal. (Prior planning prevents piss-poor performance)

Yea, instead of the other "Five-P's (Poor planning perpetuates piss-poor performance)

[Tully Mars]

By the way, there is some interesting reading on ITS at http://www.itsa.org/

[lamarrebel]

The only place on Hardy that can feasibly be widened further is west of Super-Wal-Mart in Lamar County. Some of that area (particularly westbound) is already designed for three lanes (westbound side), but not painted for it as a through traffic lane (rather than turning). I believe with the growth continuing in that direction, Hwy 98 needs to be six laned from Old Hwy 11 east. Traffic already travels well below the 55 MPH speed limit coming east bound from Old 11 because of slow traffic, and an additional lane would help alleviate that.

As far as 4th street goes, once again even west of 59, too many houses are too close to the road to do much work. Lack of long-range planning a zoning regs have led to this.

[bartspoon]

Long range planning for city government is "what are we having for lunch".:smt102

[Sgw]

It wouldnt really suprise me if they started adding ramps from 59 to 4th st...... or even hardy st to 49th st. Travel in hattiesburg is getting really bad. I know it takes me almsot 15 mins to get from 4th st across to hardy st so that i can get on 28th and that has been this summer, imagine what it is going to be like when school starts back ikes!

Sarah

[2002usmgrad]

They are planning on putting a turning lane from I-59 to Jackson Road on 4th street. And with some additional stop signs going up that's going to help out tremendously in traffic flow.

[R1ZOOM]

They really need to add exit ramps off of I-59 at Lincoln Road Extension. There are so many people going into Oak Grove, and now they have to exit at Hardy and cross multiple lanes of traffic to turn on Westover. I think an exit ramp at Lincoln extension would be very beneficial in getting some traffic off Hardy street, and surely couldn't cost that much in the grand scheme of things. Also, at a higher cost they could put an overpass in to make Oak Grove Rd connect to the road in front of or behind Home Depot, but I feel like this would probably be too cost prohibitive. It would take some traffic off of Hardy Street as well.

On a side note, has anybody else noticed how bad Westover Drive is from Hardy Street to Oak Grove Road? It has got to be one of the roughest sections of road around, and holds water like a pond. I've called the city's "Action Center" but have yet to see any action. I guess the roads in West Hattiesburg aren't as important as the roads in East Hattiesburg to the current administration. That section of road is in the city limits, and would not require a whole lot of material to repave, as it is a short section of road. They repaved and widened North Westover, I wish they'd just properly repave South Westover. I travel it multiple times a day, and fuss under my breath everytime my truck bounces over all those bumps.

[Tully Mars]

They really need to add exit ramps off of I-59 at Lincoln Road Extension. There are so many people going into Oak Grove, and now they have to exit at Hardy and cross multiple lanes of traffic to turn on Westover. I think an exit ramp at Lincoln extension would be very beneficial in getting some traffic off Hardy street, and surely couldn't cost that much in the grand scheme of things.

Again, you have MDOT's policies to thank for that situation. Their policy says that there can only be interchanges off of the interstate every 2 miles. I am not sure where that policy was when 59 was run through Laurel but there you are. MDOT has a playbook that for whatever reason no one there has enough independent thinking skills or moxie to vary from.

[aaron]

An exit ramp at Westover would be great. It may not be 2 miles, but it's got to be close. And your right about Westover, one of the worse roads in Hattiesburg. Maybe that should be a poll, what's the worst road in Hattiesburg, I know there are several good candidates.

[hubcap]

Again, you have MDOT's policies to thank for that situation. Their policy says that there can only be interchanges off of the interstate every 2 miles. I am not sure where that policy was when 59 was run through Laurel but there you are. MDOT has a playbook that for whatever reason no one there has enough independent thinking skills or moxie to vary from.

To be fair to MDOT, those are federal regulations, not state, that specifies the distance between interchanges. The state gets a good portion of their money from the feds when working on interstate or US highways.

As for the interchanges in Laurel, well the policies were different then.

[lamarrebel]

Speaking of Laurel, I want to know which Mississippi State engineer designed the S-Curve up there?? I remember driving through it for the first time during my first year of law practice back in 2000, and almost having a wreck because I wasn't prepared for it. For a major interestate highway, that stretch is a terrible disaster, and I am glad that plans are in the works to reroute it.

[Tully Mars]

To be fair to MDOT, those are federal regulations, not state, that specifies the distance between interchanges. The state gets a good portion of their money from the feds when working on interstate or US highways.

As for the interchanges in Laurel, well the policies were different then.

If you think that is only a FHWA policy, go as MDOT why the plans for the 'improved' 49 north between 98 and Southgate road will only have interchanges at each end.

[hubcap]

I'll post some more on this later tonight, we're right in the middle of trying to move our offices.

[Tully Mars]

I'll post some more on this later tonight, we're right in the middle of trying to move our offices.

My main point is this...FHWA and MDOT are both run by two primary beings, bureaucrats and engineers. In some cases they have bureaucrats that are engineers and in others they have engineers that are bureaucrats.

Both lifeforms are trained to read a book then do what the book says, without varying from the book in any way, shape or form ever, no way, no how. Its not their fault, its just what they do, they can't help it.

Our duties, as well informed and concerned cititzens is to convince them that it really is okay to think for themselves. We have to teach them that if they come up with an original idea that is not laid out in the transportation design manual that the world will keep on spinning and everything will be okay.

In all seriousness, you will not find an inklings worth of difference between the design manuals used by FHWA and MDOT. They are reading from the same sheet of music. That is why we have policies in place that will not allow an interchange at the Lincoln Road Extension, or on 4th Street. Their logic is that one exists not far up or down the interstate from that particular location so why create another. No thought is given to routes that must be taken to get from the stated located to the nearest interchange on local streets.

[hubcap]

If you think that is only a FHWA policy, go as MDOT why the plans for the 'improved' 49 north between 98 and Southgate road will only have interchanges at each end.

If that indeed is what they're planning, then I agree that sounds pretty stupid. My comment about the distance between interchanges was just to point out that the feds set standards in exchange for the money they give, and the states have to follow those standards to get the money. This also answers your statement about the manuals for the state and feds being so close to the same - there's no point in the state having a different standard from the feds if the feds won't pay them.

To be fair to MDOT again in this regard, just about any business or organization has some sort of state standard they have to meet, which is more than likely governed by some federal regulation. That's what big government is all about, like it or not, the feds have a say in just about all local/state organizations.

But on the matter of exits at Lincoln Rd. and 4th St., is the spec that disallows exits at these locations more the fault of MDOT and FHWA, or more the fault of poor planning by local leaders that have created a situation where these 2 roads have to carry so much traffic? Yeah, we need at least 2 more interchanges, but just a little bit of foresight could have seen that we needed more alternatives than just Lincoln Road and 4th St. We basically have only 3 major roads for east-west access all within 2.5 miles of each other.

There probably should be a waiver on at least one of those roads, but I can see where putting interchanges too close together could create problems with a large number of vehicles trying to merge in a short distance.

But back to the "new" 49. I haven't seen this plan, only heard a little about it. If they're doing as you said, and doing it to alleviate wrecks, I believe they're missing the cause of a lot of those wrecks, especially those that happened a few years ago. A lot of wrecks were caused by the rutting in the road, which collects water during rains and contributes to hydoplaning. I know of a few fatal wrecks that happened while the roads were wet.

If enough people protest the design of a road it can be changed. If the plan is to make 49 a controlled access road from Hattiesburg to the coast, that may be a little difficult to change. From the looks of the new interchange at Saucier, it looks like that may be the long-range plan for 49.

[Tully Mars]

All of your points are very well stated and I agree for the most part.

To be fair to MDOT again in this regard, just about any business or organization has some sort of state standard they have to meet, which is more than likely governed by some federal regulation. That's what big government is all about, like it or not, the feds have a say in just about all local/state organizations.


Very true, the difference that I am attempting to point out is that every law and every regulation is subject to interpretation by someone at some point. FHWA and MDOT leave very little room for interpretation of their regs. They simply say that what the manual say, goes. I have a bit of a problem with that as someone who works with the built environment on a daily basis. One size never fits all as is in the case with our local situation with 4th street and Lincoln Road.

True that government at all levels has regulations. However, as you stated very well, those folks implementing the regs must be responsive to the people that they serve. They must also be willing to look at situations beyond the limits of their rights-of-way and make decisions that are comprehensively applicable.

[hubcap]

I know what you mean about "going by the book". I work with MDOT people all the time and they live and die by the book.

However, there's a lot of good people there too. I've seen quite a few of them close the book and do something right, regardless of what the book says. They have to travel the same roads we do and deal with the same traffic. The problem with doing what's right versus doing what the book says is that there's 2 layers of bureauracacy to go through. The local guys would more than likely grant a waiver because of local circumstances, whereas the guy in D.C. could give a rat's ass about local stuff because they don't have to deal with it.

To me though, the big question that begs to be asked is that they knew going in that the new Lincoln Road overpass could not have an interchange because it was too close to Hardy St. And it only missed it by a little bit. Why in the hell didn't someone make some sort of decision/plan to jog the road south a little, or angle it off to the south, or whatever needed to be done to make it cross over I59 a little further south so that it would qualify for an interchange? The feds or MDOT sure didn't tell the locals that the only place they could cross I59 was at the place where they put it.

Was it done that way to spite OG people, or did they just want to piss everyone off? Would they have had to invoke eminent domain against someone influential?

[XC9]

Dupree is wanting to widen Classic Drive from 49 to Golf Course Rd. Why in the heck would he want to do this? Once you pass Mike Andersons There are no turns either way until you get to Golf Course Rd. Why would you need three lanes all the way down that road? That will be a big waste of money. :smt119 They are already suppose to change Westhills Drive and have it coming out nearer to Westover. This whole city is changing to much and to fast! :smt119

[Tully Mars]

The plans are in the works to widen Classic Drive in support of the Innovation and Technology Park that USM is planning for what was once Van Hook Golf Course. I have seen the plans and they are quite impressive.

[XC9]

You sound pleased about u.s.m. tech park, Tully Mars. Wish I was as pleased as you. I am not big into change and losing what we called a golf course was heartbreaking. Like the end of an era. How sad!

[Tully Mars]

If pleased means being excited about the prospect of the creation and recruitment of new industry and jobs into the area that are technology based, clean environmentally, and in general higher paying than the average assembly line factory job then yes, I am pleased. I regret that it is coming at the expense of Van Hook. I realize that a lot of people really loved it and the history behind it and I am really sorry that it is gone. However, I think that it boiled down to a business decision in that the land was infinitely more valuable economic developmentally speaking as a tech park than as a golf course.

[JB2379]

Hey Tully, is the USM tech park a for-sure project, or is it just speculation? I think it would be great for this area. And if a project like this is coming to our i think we can stand to lose a golf course and expand Classic Drive.

[Tully Mars]

As far as I know it is a done deal though I am unsure of the timeline. I know that the site design has been done and obviously the land is available. Perhaps someone here associated with USM could shed some additional light on this project.

[JB2379]

Well, I just read where Congress passed the bill and so the Hattiesbur area will be getting those anticipated funds for the transportation projects. I just hope they use this money wisely, because traffic is getting congested in this city.

You know, it would be pretty cool if we can get an express-type train that just travels throughout the city: This express fast train could be stationed at the train depot and could travel make stops throughout the city, as well as bring people in from Petal, Laurel, Wiggins, Columbia, and other surrounding cities to Hattiesburg for shopping, dinning, and entertainment. This could be a huge boost to our economy.
Anway, it's just an idea!

[wilebill]

As far as I know it is a done deal though I am unsure of the timeline. I know that the site design has been done and obviously the land is available. Perhaps someone here associated with USM could shed some additional light on this project.

I think it's only in the concept/pre-design stage right now.

[lamarrebel]

One thing I am pleased to see is that Lamar County is in the process of installing a three way stop at the corner of Westover and 4th street. If you are coming north from the old K-Mart building, it is virtually impossible at times to turn onto 4th street -- right or left turn. Many were turning off of Westover and making a left into a residential neighborhood to access a 4 way stop a couple of blocks west on 4th. I'm sure the residents were getting tired of this.

In short, I'm glad this is being done. My blood pressure has gone up more than a couple of times at this stop.