MDOT presents the extra mile podcast.

Welcome in to another edition of the Extra Mile podcast presented by the Mississippi Department of Transportation. I'm Paul Katool, and as always, I'm joined by my cohost, Will Craft, and we're kicking off another year of episodes of the Extra Mile podcast. And crazy crazy enough, Southern District Transportation Commissioner Charles Busby has let us in his home. He might regret this, but it was it was so nice of the invitation. We promise we'll behave.

Oh, man. I'm glad to have you here. You're stay a few days? Oh, absolutely. Why not? It's it's a cool place to be.

I mean, we're down on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It doesn't get much prettier than this. I mean, look at the water out there. It's great.

It's beautiful.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much, Commissioner Busby. Just first of all, you know, New Year, how how are the holidays? How are things so far in 2026?

Things were great. You know, I I got I got some grandsons that really like to hunt, and I kinda like that myself. So we've we've spent lot of time in the woods, and it's been fruitful, and we've had a great time and bonded together. You spend enough time in a shooting house with a kid, you talk about a lot of things. I hope they reaped something from it.

I know I did.

That's right.

Love that. Love that. Love some good family time.

We did I we'll we'll add credence to that. We saw some evidence of some antlers downstairs. Some some some things have been slain. And some things are getting mounted around here. I'm telling you.

They're looking good. No. Absolutely. Well, look, we jump right into it. Twenty twenty six wide open here by halfway through January.

Lots of other things to get to, but first, we do spend a lot of time this time of year talking about the legislative session, And it is upon us again. Any thought, I know MDOT, we don't have a whole whole lot we're looking at, but thoughts for the session?

Yeah, I this don't think we've got a huge agenda this year for the legislature. They got some heavy lifting that they're doing primarily on education. That's needed. PERS is needed. And we've had our moment.

We need to demonstrate that we can really do a lot with the money that they've given us. They've been nice to us. As the tax increase is implemented over the next year or two, we'll generate more revenue from that and be able to do more. We got a lot going on. We got a whole lot going on down here in the Southern District, Highway 57, largest contract ever let by MDOT.

It's well ahead of schedule, about 15% ahead of schedule. It'll be good to get that done. We're probably gonna open up two lanes here pretty quick to move the traffic over those two new lanes so that we can begin construction on the other side. And I think all the bridges are in. It looks great, the guys are doing a great job.

The Highway I-ten widening project, that's going well. As we begin to analyze the three year plan and see what all ought to be in it, We've got widening of I-ten from Highway 57 East to the Alabama line. Now we've got some major obstacles there that we gotta overcome. We've got the Pascagoula River Bridge and we've got the Escataba River Bridge, neither of which are gonna be easy to add a lane both ways on. But we gotta figure out how to do it.

So we've got an engineering contract out there to look at three potential ways of doing that, and come back to us with the most cost effective way and the safest way to do that. So that's something that'll happen this year. Engineering is almost complete, design is almost complete on our new welcome center, is very exciting for me. On I-10 —

Oh, yeah! I forgot about that.

Westbound coming in from Alabama. It's been an eyesore for a long long time. I'll be so happy to have this new building in place.

You know, I hate to say it this way, but when people would come into that welcome center and they we would we would show them what they think of Mississippi. Right. And I don't want that to be the first thing that they see when they come into my state. And actually, you got my picture hanging in there, it was kinda personal So to I wanna make sure that this looks great and the design that the guys have come up with looks phenomenal. I think it's gonna be much more user friendly, And I think it'll get a lot more traffic there once we get it in.

So that's probably gonna go out for construction bids here in the next few months. And we may even break a little ground before the end of the year. So hopefully we can open that maybe in '27.

I did forget about that project. That is one very much looking forward to. No, absolutely.

Yeah. And, you know, other things, like we we gotta look at whether or not we need to continue this four lane on 57 beyond Van Cleef. You know if we could continue it on up to 26 at Bendel and then carry it on forward through Leith and on in onto Hwy 98. Now we've got another four lane path coming off the coast for hurricane evacuations and for commercial traffic to get us to 98. Now once we get to 98, it gets a little more complicated.

You know, we got we got 98 is four lane, you know, all the way through. But but we if we work, does it decide to have a more direct route north, then that route that that's always been spoken of is Highway 15. And then how do we get from from 98, say, to 59 at Laurel on 15, making that four lane all the way. What does that look like? You know, we need to begin looking at that, what that that need and I think the need is gonna be there, and we gotta figure out how to meet that need.

You know, there've been some tremendous investments there at Beaumont, and, you know, we we've gonna have to support that traffic coming in and out of there. We got we got a huge investment with Hood Industries in Beaumont. We got Hood Industries again making a major investment we're so appreciative of. $250,000,000 Wow. There in Waynesboro.

It's gonna increase the truck traffic up to about 400 trucks a day in and out of that facility. We gotta find a way to get those trucks on to 45 and get them out of there. Get them moving north or south, whichever way they're going. I'd like to to to talk about to the leadership of MDOT about how we approach rail, our our our rail policies. I think we kinda let rail happen here in Mississippi instead of planning for rail to happen.

I'd like to see us be more proactive in going after federal funds. Rail is it means so much to the economic viability of the state, and and I I wanna see us do more there. And I'm excited about a lot of things to come.

Yeah, absolutely. One project that I definitely want you to mention, the Laurel project as well.

Yeah, yes. 16th Avenue, which is Highway 15 coming through Laurel runs north south there ties to 59 just south of town. We decided to take a different turn there. We decided to do something a little different, a little bit more management on the traffic lights, re striping, changing the speed limit a little bit. But the main thing that I wanna do is I wanna get those 18 wheelers out of that congested area.

Right now, their only path is to come down through that congested area of businesses on 6 8th Avenue, tied at 59, and then go back north on 59, get back on 15, headed down to the Beaumont area. Well, I think it would make more sense if we redirected that traffic coming from Bay Springs around Sharon back out to Hwy 59 there. Have them come South on 59 and then get on 15 and make their way on down. I think I think that's a much better mousetrap, and that's made possible by the passage of the Safer Routes Act federally. So we got something in our toolbox now that wasn't available to us when we first started looking at this design a few years ago.

Yeah. That's amazing.

Shout out to Senator Roger Wicker and Senator Hyde Smith there

on Absolutely. That You are absolutely correct. And

some of the intricate details there, it's gonna miss me, feel correct me if you know here. But I can't and it's something along the lines of, you know, within so many miles of the destination that the truck traffic is going, now they can, with that state limit weight load, they can now take those trucks onto the interstate where previously they could not.

That's right. That's right.

Yeah. So yeah, very good. Getting truck traffic out of the downtown, out of the community areas. I don't think there's anybody out there that would be against that.

Well when you go back and analyze the data that was used to support the project as it was before, it involved 18 wheelers. The deaths, the two deaths over the five year study period. And one was a lady that got t boned by a truck at a traffic light. Another, a guy who had a heart attack and ran into the back of a log truck.

Oh wow.

So getting those trucks off of there would have totally eliminated those accidents. Not that the gentleman that had a heart attack wouldn't hit something else, but it wouldn't have been the back of a log truck. So I think it's important that we do that. I think it's important for the people of Laurel from a safety aspect. That's what we need to do.

And I think we will. I think we'll be successful with that. I think we'll be successful with our projects over in in in the Waynesboro area. And then, you know, we look at on the on the west side of the state, Highway 24. You know, looking at some some passing lanes on 24, that's gonna be tough, but I wanna see how we can do that.

I wanna be able to have the capacity for the traffic that's on 24. We've got some roundabouts going in in the in the Lincoln County area, in the Brookhaven area. The the mayor and his staff all seem to be on board with those. I know they're a little different. I know they they take a little getting used to, but they really are great for traffic control.

And they've been very successful. And I hope the folks will be open minded when it comes in. And please know, I hear people tell me all the time, we're gonna have log trucks who got 18 wheelers that gotta go around these things. Believe me, we've done our homework. We have talked to the Mississippi Loggers Association.

We have talked to Mississippi Truckers Association. And we have gotten their stamp of approval on these roundabouts. They're good with them. So find another excuse, because those folks are good with them. And we have actually taken their largest trucks and made certain that the distances there will suffice That's for those right.

Yeah. These are not the roundabouts of old.

No. They are not.

These are these are new. They're you can approach them. Like, they can even curb mount, of some of these to get trucks through. I mean, it's very manageable. And not to mention, looks great.

You know? I'll be the first to say I hate a red light, so I'm all for the roundabouts. Not this factors nothing into where roundabouts go, though, but as far as my opinions.

Oh, yeah. Roundabouts, they are very good things for sure. Brian Havanek, shout out to our engineer friend who just loves them. Lots of lots of work going on around the state. You and your office are doing a lot of stuff a lot of good stuff.

So you mentioned Highway 57 earlier, that hurricane evacuation route. So we've really been spared the last couple years when it comes to threats of hurricanes, which is a really good thing. But last year, we had a little winter weather down here on the coast, if you remember. That was kinda crazy.

Yeah. It it was great. You know, I think it was, what, January 20? January 25, something like that. And and we we actually got the side by side out and had all the grandkids out here, and we had these little learning water skis.

You remember those? Yeah. It's all one piece. And we put them on those and we drug them up and down the beach on the snow here. And then the entire I don't know, it was the entire community, but a large portion of the community turned out, and we've got a hill down here at Beach Point.

And everyone's just sliding down that hill on the snow. We had a blast. We don't ever get that. You got seven and a half inches of snow down Crazy here in wild. And you know, the community enjoyed it.

We had a good time. We got to be New England for a day, What I

is it? Before then, do you remember the last time it snowed on the coast?

2018.

Okay. Okay. As long as I thought.

Yeah. 2018, I think it was. Now, I it barely made it to the coast. There wasn't much on the coast. About 120 miles north of here, where the hunting camp is.

It snowed three times that year.

Goodness gracious. Well, that's crazy. Yeah. The pictures from that were absolutely me and Will didn't make it down here, but that was absolutely amazing. And then just speaking of the coast, just kind of in general, you know, we we come down here a good bit for work, but I mean, is absolutely booming post Katrina.

It's been, you know, twenty years now, but things just to seem seem to be firing on all cylinders.

And it and it's so different. It's so different from Jackson County, Harrison County, Hancock County. Yeah. Each each county is is unique in its own way. Here in in the Pascagoula area, you know, we're blue collar.

Sure. We have we have the absolute privilege to have the largest employer in the state here with the English Shipbuilding and the largest oil refinery East Of The Mississippi here with Chevron. Great, great community and industrial partners for us. I mean, so so around here we're we're welding and we're we're pulling wires and we're pulling cables and we're docking tugboats and we're doing those sorts of things. And then you make your way, we begin to transition as we move to the West, you hit Ocean Springs and Ocean Springs has just got a vibe that's all its own, man.

It's a beautiful little town. It shows up on every report you see about one of the best places to live in Mississippi, of the best places to live on the coast, one of the best places to live in the country on the water. It's it's a really really cool place. And then moving on over, once you cross over the bay and and you're in the Harrison County and the casinos take over. Yeah.

And then you've got you've got all the hospitality industry there that you could ever imagine. You know, just great, great, fantastic assets. And then Hancock's kind of a combination of the two. Yeah. Yeah.

It's it's it's it's really neat.

And all the economic development growth, lots of good things happen down here. One of you mentioned earlier trains. We did have the commuter rail return, Amtrak to the coast. I know you guys are loving that.

Yeah. We are. The, the Mardi Gras Amtrak. Yeah. Fantastic.

My wife has season tickets to the Sanger Theater in New Orleans, and she has utilized that train a lot. She absolutely loves it. The the schedule is perfect to, get here get on board here about 07:15. You take off. You get to New Orleans.

You get to go have a nice brunch, and then you go to the show, come out of the show, go back to the terminal, catch the train back to Pascagoula. It's a it's a great way to go. As a as a matter of fact, she and I are celebrating our forty second anniversary, and we got date night. We're couple of months back. Actually happened in December, so we're we're a little behind.

But we got date night coming up here on on Thursday night. We're gonna get up Thursday morning, leave at 07:30 or 07:15, whatever the time is. Go to New Orleans, spend the day, and there's a one man play at The Sanger that night with Richard Thomas who plays Mark Twain. Oh, okay. And so we're gonna watch that and have a nice meal and stay at a hotel over there and get up Friday morning and make our way back to Pascoe Hill on the Amtrak.

So, yeah, we're looking forward to that.

Once again, shout out to senator Wicker. He's getting double and Amtrak, I suppose. We appreciate y'all. Absolutely.

Yeah. There was a lot there was a lot of infrastructure. People may not have recognized it, but there was a lot of infrastructure changes that had to take place in order for that to happen.

Oh, yeah.

And you know, I wanna do it, give a shout out to our our commercial rail partners too. You know, it's just not easy sharing tracks and giving priority to a to a six car passenger rail instead of a 60 car commercial rail. But our our commercial rail companies have have done great. I appreciate their willingness to be a part of this and and the infrastructure that had to be put in. Know, senator Wicker helped with with all of that, senator Hyde Smith.

Getting the sidetracks and the switching, making the changes to the crossings that had to be made for this. There was quite a bit of work that went into this effort, and has been going on back when I was in the House, back when I was chair of in the House, we were doing this five, six years ago, getting that infrastructure in place to get ready for that moment, and then as you know we kicked it off this past summer, and it's been going. The reports I get from Amtrak tell me that the passenger loading that they've been getting is surpassing what they expected. Oh awesome. So everything's good for the moment.

Love it.

That's amazing. Hey listen, Mississippians, we love New Orleans. So it's like our home away from home. So I am gonna make that trip myself very soon. Commissioner Busby, lots of great information.

Is there any other final message you wanna give to your constituents or Mississippians in general?

Other than just to be patient with us. Sure. You know, these projects are not projects that happen overnight. And it causes a lot of pain and grief when we're in construction and we've got roads closed and we're causing people to take detours. I would really, really just just beg people.

Please be aware of the constructions of the construction zones. Please respect our people. Please slow down and make it a safe zone for them. They're out there really, I hate to say it this way, but they're really risking their lives to And complete these at times people just are so disrespectful that I really wish they would be more respectful and consider those people. I didn't know what it was like to lose people until I got into this position.

And and now I've had the the very traumatic opportunity to to know what that feels like and it's not good. And I would I I I didn't I didn't pay as much attention as I should have before. And now that I have, I just wanna urge all of our folks to do that. And we're gonna get them done as quickly as we can. We promise to try to be out of your way as quickly as we can as long as we can deliver to you the safe and quality product that you deserve and that you are looking for.

And we'll continue to look for ways to make it safe and to make it as economical as it can. I'm so proud of our folks here in the Southern District. We are about three or four months away from having no asphalt conditions that are below average in the entire district.

Wow. That's cool.

And that is saying a lot.

That that shout out to all of the MDOT employees of District 6 And 7. So proud of you. So glad that to to be a part of the family now. And very proud to to be able to speak for

them. Love that.

That's awesome. Thank you so much for that message, commissioner Busby, and thank you for all the hard work that you and your, hard working staff do. Thank you for hosting us. We appreciate you.

I appreciate you being here.

Yes, sir. Absolutely. We will go ahead and wrap things up right right there. Thank you to our listeners, our viewers for tuning into the Extra Mile podcast. You can watch and listen to episodes by visiting gom..com/theextramile.

Follow us on social media at Mississippi DOT is the handle. We want to thank our editor, our producer Drew Hall for holding things down behind the scenes, and remember to drive smart out there on Mississippi highways.