THE NEW YEAR IS here and as Madison city officials begin work on one road project, Madison County officials are hoping to wrap up work on another.

About four months ago, the city brought on Neel-Schaffer Engineering to conduct an environmental assessment for the Hoy Road widening project. Public Works Director Denson Robinson said the study would likely take a year to complete.

As engineers take care of the preliminary work on that project, County Road Engineer Rudy Warnock said a fiber optic cable and wet conditions have delayed crews from finishing a project to pave over Tisdale Road and connect it to U.S. 51.

“We can asphalt the road from the four-way stop, but we can’t continue to Highway 51 until the line is removed,” he told the Northside Sun, adding that he is unsure when the troublesome cable will be removed and located to another place.

THE CABLE IS owned by the communications juggernaut AT&T. While fiber optic cables are known for providing residents with a faster trip down the information superhighway, they can actually prohibit work on actual highways and road projects.

In North Jackson, a cable has hampered crews in their efforts to repair a sinkhole along Ridgewood Road. And in Madison County, work was stalled for a year on one project while the county waited for lines to be removed along Gluckstadt Road. The Tisdale project has also been hampered by sewer lines.

Tisdale Road is located near Rice and Hoy roads in south Madison County. The county began work on the $150,000 project in May. It calls for building 1,400 feet of new paved road and overlaying an additional 800 feet and connecting it to the highway.

In-house crews are completing 80 percent of the project, Warnock said. While officials hope to continue that project soon, residents in Madison will still have to face heavy traffic when traveling down Hoy Road, Robinson said.

Although Madison city officials recently hired an engineering firm to conduct an environmental study on the project, Robinson said it would be at least a year before the study is completed and actual dirt can begin turning on the project.

It’s still too early to tell how the project will shape up, but initially the city already has an idea in place on how to prevent traffic tie-ups during peak traffic hours. In the first phase, crews will widen the street to four lanes from Rice Road to U.S. 51.

Another phase of the project would widen the roadway from N. Old Canton Road to Rice Road. It will include a landscaped median and turn bays. “That’s what we’re thinking now,” he said. “That’s the preferred plan, but what happens depends on the study.”

Residents will have an opportunity to find out more about the study at a public hearing later this year. Robinson plans to hold a public hearing in late January or early February to discuss the project. A date will be set at the next Madison board of aldermen meeting.

THE PROJECT IS still in the preliminary stages, but experts say its price tag will be in the millions.

About $5.2 million of the project is being funded through an 80-20 matching grant administered through the Central Mississippi Planning and Development District.

Hoy Road started out as a farm-to-market road designed to handle 2,000 vehicles a day. Today, as new residential and commercial development have popped up around it, city officials estimate it sees as many as 12,000 vehicles a day.

It is home to a number of subdivisions, including Geneva Gardens, Pepper Mill, Hoy Farms, Charlestowne and Victoria Park. And several other housing developments, like St. Ives and Cross Creek, have frontage on Hoy. Other commercial developments dot the landscape along the first couple hundred yards near Old Canton Road, he said.

“Obviously, we’ve widened and improved it,” Robinson noted. But as new developments like Lost Rabbit come to fruition, the road will quickly exceed its capacity.

As a two-lane road, CMPDD Executive Director Larry Smith said Hoy has a capacity of about 15,000 vehicles a day. According to district figures, once Lost Rabbit and a couple of other new developments go on-line by 2020, more than 16,000 vehicles will make use of Hoy in a 24-hour period.

“As a four-lane, undivided road, it would have a capacity for 23,000 vehicles,”Smith said. Work on the roadway could begin in 2010.