SDI and LCSO look to improve morning traffic for Lowndes Co.
LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Progress isn’t always pretty, ask drivers travelling Highway 82 in Lowndes County in the early morning hours.
Traffic backups at the Golden Triangle Regional Airport exit have been giving commuters headaches for a while now.
With around 1,500 construction workers at the Aluminum Dynamics site, and first shift workers at Steel Dynamics, Paccar, and Airbus reporting for work, the lines coming off the on-ramp there are sometimes as long as a mile or mile and a half between the hours of 5:30 a.m. and 7:30 a.m.
Well, the SDI and Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office have been working on a solution.
An off-duty Sheriff’s deputy will be directing traffic at the intersection of the on-ramp and Airport Road.
The goal is to keep traffic flowing smoothly and safely without the stops and starts at that junction.
“Right now they contract with our Sheriff’s Department to provide security, so they have amended that contract with a new contract agreement that would also allow for the payment of an off-duty officer to sit there and do the traffic. That benefits everybody there”, said Lowndes County Board of Supervisors’ President, Trip Hairston.
The county has also been in talks with the Mississippi Department of Transportation. MDOT is working on a long-term solution.
