route to be debated again Jan. 12

[1/5/05]PORT GIBSON Officials will head back to the drawing table at a Jan. 12 meeting in Jackson to try to settle on a four-lane route for U.S. 61 around this town.

The goal is to speed the flow of highway traffic without crippling tourism in the historic area that features some of the South’s most scenic homes and churches.

“We’ve kicked this thing back and forth,” said Central District Highway Commissioner Dick Hall. “There’s a world of folks to please on this.”

The difficulty of choosing a route is the reason the project, a final component in the state’s 1987 comprehensive highway program, has taken so long to complete, Hall said. Wednesday’s meeting will mark the ninth time officials have tried to agree on a route.

“I thought it would’ve been done 10 years ago,” Hall said.

Representatives from the Mississippi Department of Transportation, Claiborne County and the City of Port Gibson will meet at MDOT headquarters.

When created, U.S. 61 stretched from downtown New Orleans to downtown Chicago, running through the center of towns along its route, including Vicksburg, Natchez and Fayette.

Bypasses looping around larger cities were completed decades ago. The 1987 state plan was supposed to complete that process for smaller towns and four-lane all of U.S. 61 plus hundreds of other highway miles statewide.

A sticking point is whether a two-lane section across Bayou Pierre will remain.

The Claiborne County Board of Supervisors and the Mayor and Board of Aldermen of Port Gibson both passed resolutions Tuesday in support of keeping the bridge and constructing a welcome center near Orange Street.

“Our big issue for Claiborne County is to make sure that the bridge remains open,” said Charles Shorts, president of board of supervisors. Keeping the bridge is critical to maintaining a steady flow of tourists to the city downtown, the resolution said.

Hall said the goal should be to keep trucks out of the downtown area, but preserve tourism.

“We’re not going to do anything to just bypass the city,” he said. “That’s a dumb thing to do when you’ve got a tourist attraction like Port Gibson.”

Whether a bypass is built east or west of the city is also an issue. Hall said any highway must avoid the marshlands that border the town, historic sites and Entergy’s Grand Gulf Nuclear Power Station.