ACQUIRING RIGHTS-OF-WAY has delayed the construction of two roads in Madison County, while Park Place Boulevard was scheduled to open this week, District 2 Supervisor Tim Johnson said.

Connecting Highland Colony Parkway to Mississippi 463, the four-lane Park Place Boulevard “is going to relieve a lot of congestion from school traffic,” he said. “It also gives fire and police departments better access to Madison Central High School.”

Johnson is president of the Madison County Board of Supervisors.

Work on another four-lane boulevard, Calhoun Station Parkway, cannot begin until right-of-way issues are resolved, Johnson said.

“The holdup is trying to get the right-of-way donated. The road would eventually run from Gluckstadt Road to Highway 22.”

Johnson said the property owner whose land is in the path of the proposed boulevard is seeking around $700,000 for the right-of-way. However, he said, the initial agreement called for the owner to donate the right-of-way for a zoning variance.

“It would have three phases, but I don’t know how long it would take as far as time to build the road once we get past these right-of-way issues. I would assume it would take probably a year to build it.”

Rights-of-way conflicts have also slowed progress on the Gluckstadt Road project.

“But we’ve about got those cleared up,” Johnson said. “Hopefully, we will get it finished this year. It’s going to be a three-lane, curb-and-gutter road, and that’s all it needs to be since we are building Reunion. If we weren’t building Reunion, it would need to be a five-lane road.”

GLUCKSTADT WILL BE widened from I-55 to near Catlett Road, Johnson said.

A $12 million bond issue was passed in 2007 to help pay for the projects. Work on Gluckstadt, Park Place Boulevard and Calhoun Station Parkway is expected to cost about $8 million, according to the county’s road plan for the next four years.

That document calls for spending $48 million on improving 80 miles of road. Madison County’s Road Department and bond proceeds will pay for work on roads that need to be overlayed, reconstructed or paved. Another $38 million, with $6 million provided by the Mississippi Department of Transportation and $6 million offered by an unidentified private donor, has been allocated for building an interchange at Reunion Parkway that will link Mississippi 463 to U.S. 51 near Madison.

Work on the interchange should be complete by 2010, and construction on an interchange at Gluckstadt is expected to start soon thereafter.

Central District Commissioner Dick Hall, after twice voting against approving the “Finding of No Significant Impact,” relented March 11 after he and county officials reached a compromise on construction of an interchange at Gluckstadt.

Federal law requires unanimous approval of the study.

At the center of contention between Hall, county officials and Butler was whether an interchange at Reunion should be built, whether traffic was a bigger problem at Gluckstadt and whether taxes would be raised to pay for the work at Reunion.

Madison County has built five lanes on the east side of the Gluckstadt interchange and plans to add three lanes on the west side. The state’s work on the overpass was set to begin in 2014, but commissioners’ approval of the FONSI was contingent upon moving up that project to 2010.

In Washington, officials are expected to approve the FONSI within 30 days. Design work on Gluckstadt is expected to begin in about 12 months.

According to MDOT, more than 17,000 travel Mississippi 463 each day. More than 42,000 travel U.S. 51 between Madison and Ridgeland to Gluckstadt every day.