The Madison County Board of Supervisors has made infrastructure and road improvements one of their top priorities for the upcoming fiscal year as the county continues to grow in numbers – this is reflected in their ongoing top projects around the county: Reunion 2, Reunion 3, Bozeman Road, Catlett Road and Yandell Road.
While Madison County has other smaller projects going on, these five are the main projects. The Reunion 2 project consists of a new road plus an I-55 overpass from Bozeman Road to Parkway East. The environmental design and concept process began in late 2017 and, currently the county is waiting on the Mississippi Department of Transportation to advertise for the construction phase.
“We expect that this will occur within the next 30 days,” Madison County Spokesman Heath Hall said.
This is also the stage of the project that Reunion 3 is at, which consists of a new road and bridge over the railroad from Parkway East to US 51. Once the contracts are awarded and construction begins on these projects, the estimated timeline for completion will be 18 months. The cost of Reunion 2 is estimated to be $18.5 million with Reunion 3 just under that amount at $18 million.
Bozeman Road is also moving along nearing phase two of the project from Reunion to Gluckstadt Road. The first part of the project, which included adding a bike trail and widening the roadway from 463 to Reunion to look similar to Highland Colony Parkway, is nearing completion, but the second phase is in the initial design and about four years away from completion, County Engineer Tim Bryan said. The $22 million project is currently in the stage of relocating utilities before construction can begin to nearly double the road’s capacity. Once started, the project will take 18 to 24 months. Bryan said they hope to be advertising the project by the middle of next year.
The county is currently in the process of buying the right-of-way for Catlett Road. Last October, the Board of Supervisors approved the widening of the road and making changes to its intersection with Stribling Road Extension due to the surge of new development along the road between the extension and Stribling Road. The new neighborhoods in the area required changes to the roads.
“We want to provide left turn access into the new neighborhoods (from Catlett Road),” Bryan said.
The current plan is to put in a traffic light at the intersection and expand Catlett Road to three lanes in between Stribling Road and Stribling Road Extension. The project is estimated to cost $5 million. Although construction isn’t expected to start until at least 2023, the project itself will take 12 months or less once it has begun.
The final large project that Madison County is in the process of working on is Yandell Road from Madison Crossing Elementary School to Westfalen Drive. That is in the beginning stages as the county is working on the initial design for an eastbound left turn lane at the school entrance and an additional westbound lane from Madison Crossing Elementary School back to the west to tie into the existing three lane section of Yandell Road near Westfalen Drive. This $4.5 million project is expected to take 12 months to complete once the contract is awarded. Construction is expected to begin in 2025.
“This portion of Yandell Road experiences a high level of traffic congestion, especially during the morning peak travel times, due to an increase in residential development along Yandell Road mixed with school traffic,” CMPDD Senior Transportation Planner Lesley Callender said. “Adding the additional lane will aid in reducing travel delays along this portion of Yandell Road.”
All of these projects are important to the continued growth of the county, especially those with interstate access points.
“Providing more access points to the interstate is important,” Hall said. “Madison County continues to experience significant growth. To that end, the county is implementing a plan for additional road capacity to help move traffic more efficiently and safely.”
