A majority of the state’s highway commissioners support routing U.S. 61 around historic Port Gibson, Dick Hall said in Vicksburg Thursday.

Addressing the Vicksburg Rotary Club, Hall, the central district commissioner for the Mississippi Department of Transportation, also said preliminary work toward extending South Frontage Road from Mississippi 27 to the Outlets at Vicksburg is moving the project closer to being shovel-ready, which will place it high on the priority list when funding is available.

“The main thing is to get the 18-wheelers off Church Street, in my opinion,” Hall said of Port Gibson.

Widening all of the old federally numbered routes in the state to four lanes was a part of a 1987 MDOT initiative, he said. U.S. 61 through Port Gibson, about 25 miles south of Vicksburg, is one of the last to be widened.

The three-term commissioner previously came out on the side of rerouting the highway, but had been opposed by two former commissioners. That has changed, he said, though commissioners still have environmental issues to study.

The review of the potential impact on Bayou Pierre, on the north end of Port Gibson, has been in the works since 2010 by Michael Baker Jr. Inc.

Michael Arnemann, an assistant to Hall, said in February that the study was finished but MDOT had not seen it.

Business owners and many elected city and Claiborne County officials have opposed any plan to route the highway around the city, saying it would hurt business, and passed a resolution in 2010 supporting the straight-shot approach.

“Save Church Street” preservationists have been opposed to keeping the highway running though the city, saying log trucks and other heavy vehicles have damaged live oaks and historic homes and churches that line 61, known as Church Street in the center of town.

“There has been opposition to every idea we’ve put out there,” Hall said.

He did not provide a timetable for review of the study or resolution of the issue.

In Vicksburg, he said, work to extend South Frontage should place it near the top of projects awaiting funding.

“Funding is the issue,” he said. “Getting it shovel-ready gives it a leg up.”

MDOT has been buying lots and obtaining rights of way and getting utilities moved, he said.

Over the past five years, Warren County has benefitted from about $50 million in infrastructure repair and reconstruction, Hall said. Projects have ranged from landscaping the Mississippi Welcome Center on Washington Street to reconstructing and resurfacing U.S. 61 South and replacing the Yazoo River Bridge in Redwood.

“Warren County is probably in the best shape of any of the 22 counties in my district,” Hall said.

Hall promised one problem would be fixed — a piece of protruding rebar on the on-ramp to Interstate 20 at Washington Street that has been blamed for shredding tires of vehicles then forced into emergency stops on the Mississippi River Bridge.

“The minute we found out about it I got our people on it,” Hall said, “and they are in the process of doing something about it.”