Starkville’s main commercial artery, Highway 12, is one of north Mississippi’s most dangerous roads, and Mississippi Department of Transportation officials hope to curb its high accident amounts with landscaped medians, Northern District Transportation Commissioner Mike Tagert said Wednesday.
MDOT held a public input session Wednesday at The Mill at MSU, where it debuted plans to replace portions of the thoroughfare’s continuous two-way turning lane with a raised median.
The plan was developed after a safety study was conducted and also suggests implementing signal upgrades to help with traffic congestion, driveway modifications and site-specific turning radius improvements.
“It’s definitely one of the worst crash rates of any commercial routes north of the Jackson metro area,” Tagert said. “The Highway 12 corridor is the commercial lifeblood of Starkville, and a safer route is good for business and all the traveling public. This concept will greatly improve traffic flow and hopefully decrease the number of crashes in the first year by 30-40 percent. That’s a huge savings with the loss of personal property and the reduction of accidents and injuries.”
The MDOT study noted 1,664 wrecks occurred over 6.8 miles of road from January 2010 to June 2015, which equates to one crash every 29 hours and one incident every 22 feet.
On average, at least 300 wrecks occur on Highway 12 in Starkville each year.
Twenty-six percent of those wrecks involved right-angle collisions, while 48 percent were rear-end accidents.
“We found that a significant number of these accidents were caused … when people are trying to exit left onto the highway,” Tagert said. “Then, they’re exiting across three unsafe lanes and attempting to merge with a fourth lane. The median recommendation is very specific for this route. It is the single best countermeasure to cut down and decrease the number of crashes.”
Some attendees at the public information session expressed concerns about how commuters would access businesses along Highway 12 after medians are installed. Similar fears emerged in a November meeting where property owners rallied against a business improvement district that would have added aesthetic improvements ahead of MDOT’s safety project.
“It does not affect business, and there are quite a few studies that show it helps to increase property values,” Tagert said. “We think a safer route is good for business. Our objective is simply to decrease the number of accidents on 12 significantly.”
While the project’s costs have not been unveiled, Tagert said the sheer amount of wrecks along Highway 12 qualifies the effort for MDOT’s designated fund for safety improvements.
That fund, he said, should cover most of the expenses.
MDOT is aiming to begin construction efforts in 2017, an ambitious goal Tagert said could be made possible since the entire project will occur within public right of way.
Property acquisitions are not needed to move forward.
“We had a good, healthy mixture of comments, most of which were supportive,” he said of Wednesday’s session. “The most promising thing about it was that once people understood our objective of safety, they were supportive.”
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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