New roadways being designed to help with traffic flow along Bob Anthony Parkway

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - New plans are being discussed to help improve traffic flow along the Bob Anthony Parkway.

The proposed plans are for Spillway Road between Lake Harbour Drive and Old Fannin Road and North Shore Parkway. The goal is to come up with alternate routes, moving all of the traffic off of the Ross Barnett Reservoir Dam.

On Thursday, a public meeting took place, giving people the chance to look at the plans being proposed.

It’s the first time the designs have been released. Roughly 30,000 cars drive along the Spillway every day.

The roadways weren’t meant to carry that type of traffic, that’s why new roadways are being discussed to sustain that type of activity.

“The dam was never intended to carry traffic,” said Mark Beyea, Chief Engineer for the Pearl River Valley Water Supply District. “It was intended to hold water in the lake, so all of those vehicles moving across there are a load the dam was never envisioned to take. It’s not really causing it any problem right now, but we have to restrict the load limit on the dam to one ton.”

While creating a smoother and safer traffic flow is one of the advantages of a new roadway, Beyea said there could be a few areas seeing big impacts.

“You got some residential areas on each end that could be affected on each end depending on the alternate alignments that they go with,” Beyea explained. “You’ve got some recreational areas down there, there are some soccer fields down there which should not be impacted themselves, but their access road may be impacted.”

Things are still in the planning stages.

Thursday was the first public meeting; another one will be held a few months from now. However, an exact date hasn’t been decided just yet.

“It’s strictly a planning operation,” said Beyea. “There’s not a bulldozer that’s going to start next week. This project if it gets build is several years down the road.”

The chief engineer estimates this project would cost more than $100 million.

“Moving this road, we could potentially remove the weight limits and allow larger vehicles to travel that route,” said Beyea. “It would make it easier for businesses to do business in the area.”

People have until August 12th to give their input about the proposed plans.

To submit a comment online, click on this highlighted link.

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