(Paul) Welcome in to another edition of The Extra Mile podcast presented by the Mississippi Department of Transportation. I’m MDOT Digital Media Manager Paul Katool and I’m joined by my co-host Will Craft. He handles government and constituent affairs here at the agency.

And today we’re gonna do a bit of a special episode. We’re going to hone in on a proposed project State Route 15, Highway 15 project in Laurel. And to talk about this project we’ve got District 6 Engineer Kelly Castleberry. Kelly, thank you so much for joining us today.

(Kelly) Hello and thanks for having me.

(Will) Appreciate you taking some time out of your day to come talk to us, man.

(Paul) Absolutely. So, let’s just get straight to it. Can you give us an overview of what’s going to happen with this project?

(Kelly) Right. So, right now in State Route 15 in Laurel there is a center turn lane from Interstate 59 north 3.2 miles. That’s the way it is today as we sit here. And right now, a lot of the motorists are competing for that turn lane to turn left. And so, there’s a lot of head-on collisions, a lot of side swipes, a lot of right-angle collisions.

What MDOT is proposing is to come in and place a six-inch concrete curve with island pavement in-between the curb kind of what we call a median and then place left turn movements at certain locations to make it safe for you to make that left turn. And by doing that we can reduce the accidents in that corridor.

(Will) Speaking of accidents I think this is one of the routes we had turned quite a bit of numbers in relation to. Paul, you had some statistics uh but I’m sure, Kelly, you know firsthand it’s a pretty accident-prone area, right?

(Kelly) Right. It is. It’s I think in the state it’s the third most accident-prone corridor in the state. Uh over roughly a four-year period we’ve had 150-something accidents. And that’s that’s not including what’s occurring every month since we completed that study. I know the other day I drove down that corridor and there was a three-car accident right there in the median again. So, it is very accident-prone and like I said before you’ve got a lot of people competing for the same real estate a lot of conflict movement.

(Paul) Sure. Let’s go ahead and I just want to read out those stats because they are staggering. So, from January 2017 to December 2021 there’s 1,155 crashes uh 500 injuries resulted from these collisions uh two fatalities and 500 injuries. That is significant and that is why this project is getting done, correct?

(Kelly) Correct. The the goal of MDOT is to make sure that we move traffic in a safe and efficient way. And those two aspects are why we’re looking at this particular project. We can safen that corridor up. We could typically reduce the accidents by at least a third if not more. That that’s our goal. And then also with that corridor you do have a lot of business on that corridor. We can provide a little bit more efficiency and make it easier for motorists to get around.

(Will) I would think too, I don’t know if it’s kind of an old standard or just something that took place situationally, but I feel like a lot of those highways with that center turn lane like what we’re talking about are those kind of outdated kind of most places moving away from that project type?

(Kelly) Right. It used to I would say probably back in the mid to late 80s the the common standard treatment is once you got enough capacity on your corridor to come in and allow that free left turn in a center turn lane. And that’s what was done in Laurel. It used to have kind of like a grass median in certain areas. And back in the 80s MDOT came through and put that turn lane in. Of course, at that time the traffic was half of what it is today. We were looking at somewhere around 16 to 18,000 vehicles today per back then today it’s 30,000 vehicles per day. And so, just a rule of thumb just very generic rule of thumb when you reach that 15 to 16,000 vehicles per day in a corridor you need to put turn lanes in. So, that’s what MDOT did. When you start reaching 40,000 vehicles a day, you’re looking you need to go ahead and look at capacity for maybe a six-lane corridor. Laurel is not to that standard yet so that’s the reason why we’re trying to modify the left turns and try to make sure that we can safen that road up and increase the efficiency.

(Paul) Sure. Change is hard but this similar project has been done around the state. So, for instance State Route 12 in Starkville. Um, I know you can probably mention some other ones down in the Southern District. But this has been done and you know at the completion of these projects they have been effective, correct?

(Kelly) That’s correct. One of the first ones I actually did was in 2009, 2010 in Gulfport on US 49. We had a corridor from Turkey Creek all the way up north to close to O’Neill road where we did this exact same treatment. And a lot of the concerns that your business community are tasked with in Laurel right now. Gulfport business community had the same concerns. And today all of those businesses are still functioning. In fact, there’s been more business development since we put that in because now motorists are able to travel through that corridor not get stuck for congestion and make it easy to get around. So, it’s been done there.

It’s been done in Hattiesburg on US 49. There’s a project just recently on 49 in Richland just south of Jackson. It’s been completed. We are looking at other corridors throughout the state uh actually Pascagoula US 90 this has been done on that entire corridor. So, it’s this is kind of the treatment that we’re looking at to solve some of those left turn conflicts.

And it’s not just Mississippi. It’s all the states in our in AASHTO I guess our our state transportation development district. That’s all of them are looking at this same treatment. If you go to Iowa they have the exact same thing that we’re looking at here. And if you go to Tennessee they have the exact same thing in Tennessee up on Germantown Parkway. So, it depends on the type of traffic you’ve got, the capacity of the road and the type of accidents that are occurring.

(Paul) Gotcha. Gotcha.

(Will) I don’t know you guys have had a lot of public meetings a lot of kind of Outreach to the communities to get feedback on that. What’s kind of the next step? Well, I know it’s a little bit of timeline uh before construction may get started but what kind are the next steps here?

(Kelly) Right right now we’re fine-tuning the the design. We’ve got a good bit of the design done. We’ve taken some of the comments from a comment period. And we incorporate the the comments that people put in. You know, we’re typically not looking at the one that says I just don’t want it. You’re you’re looking at the ones that say hey, have y’all thought about this or how does this person get into their business or how do I commute? And those we can actually address those. And so, we’re in the final stages of trying to address those comments from that that public outreach that we did earlier.

(Will) And then we kind of touched on but you’re really looking kind of maybe 2024 late 2023 kind of getting that getting the ball rolling on actually getting it to construction out there, right?

(Kelly) Right. Right. This is a high hazard safety improvement we’re looking at to do this based on the accidents that have occurred there. Uh typically we’re looking at maybe letting the project maybe late 2023. And then you would probably see contractor that would be out there in maybe Spring of 2024.

One thing to consider this isn’t necessarily a widening project so most of the work is going to be contained in that center turn lane. So, almost all the driveways are going to stay just like they are. There a few modifications. There is just a little bit of right-of-way that we have to purchase so trucks can make the turn around. But at the end of the day the majority of the work’s in the median and that center turn lane. And it’s just going through they’re placing a curb pour an island pavement and making sure that we move those new lifts in the in the place they need to be.

(Will) A little bit of time before it takes place. We just definitely want to get the folks out there make sure you’re aware but do have a little bit of time before we get started there.

(Paul) Oh no doubt. No doubt. And one more stat I didn’t mention. Uh we talked about before recording is the third more third most accident-prone corridor in the state so again safety, safety, safety. Um that’s why this project is getting done.

Kelly, uh before we get you out of here is there anything else you kind of want to mention on the project? Any message you know to the public you want to provide?

(Kelly) The main thing is we we appreciate their comments. You know, you can call MDOT and ask the question and we’ll be glad to answer any questions anybody has on the project. And we’ve been doing that pretty successfully I believe. The other thing is is that at the end of the day MDOT is trying to make that road safer.

You know, it’s MDOT understands the business community. And a lot of the other business communities and all of these other cities that we’ve done this have had the exact same concerns that Laurel does and it’s a valid concern. There’s two people that there’s two things that people really don’t like. The first thing is change and the second thing is the way things are. So, at the end of the day we’ve gotta try to make it safer. So, there is going to have to be a little bit of change, but it will work better in the future once that change is made.

(Paul) Excellent. Excellent. Well, Kelly, thank you so much for coming in and talking to us about the State Route 15 project in Laurel. Thank you so much for joining us.

(Kelly) I appreciate y’all having me.

(Paul) Absolutely. So, we’ll just go ahead and wrap things up. Uh thank you to our listeners out there for tuning in to The Extra Mile podcast. Uh remember you can watch and listen to episodes. Go to GoMDOT.com/TheExtraMile. Remember to follow us on social media @MississippiDOT is the handle. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, etc. I want to thank our producer Katey Hornsby, our editor Drew Hall. They do great work behind the scenes. Um and yeah that’s about it uh tagline remember to drive smart out there on Mississippi highways.