A project that will make nearly $20 million in safety improvements along the I-55 corridor is expected to move forward during the new year.
“It is currently in the design phase with right-of-way acquisition and utility relocation expected to take place in 2026 and 2027,” said Michael Flood, spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT).
In 2024, MDOT received a $19,947,355 Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) Grant to make improvements that include:
Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant sidewalks on the East and West I-55 Frontage Roads;
Pedestrian crossings at County Line Road and Briarwood Drive over the interstate and at Canton Mart Road and Northside Drive under the interstate;
Raised medians with pedestrian refuge islands;
Marked pedestrian crossings, safety signage, crossing push buttons and displays, and lighting for sidewalks;
Glare screen fencing on top of the existing I-55 concrete median barrier;
The project was a collaborative effort between the city of Jackson, Hinds County and other local entities.
The pedestrian fatality rate along the project corridor is three times higher than the state average, according to a fact sheet about the grant.
At the time of grant application, there had been 18 pedestrian fatalities since 2019 in the project area, Flood said.
Scott Crawford, Ph.D., an accessibility advocate, said the improvements that are to come are “a “promising development” that he and others have sought for more than a decade.
In 2023, the city of Jackson, the Central Mississippi Planning and Development District, the Federal Highway Administration, the Mississippi Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities, Disability Rights of Mississippi, Hinds County Economic Development and JTRAN worked to produce a Pedestrian Interstate Mobility Plan.
Exactly where along the frontage roads the sidewalks would go is still to be determined.
Crawford, a retired clinical neuropsychologist who uses a wheelchair because he has multiple sclerosis, hopes that the project designers will consult pedestrians who use the I-55 corridor when they plan the improvements.
Crawford has worked with the city of Jackson to ensure that projects are ADA-compliant. He studied the sidewalks along a segment of Riverside Drive when they were newly constructed to ensure they were done right.
The project could result in a reduction in carbon dioxide emission because of a shift to “active transportation modes by increasing pedestrian access,” according to the grant fact sheet.
Joseph Wade, who was chief of the Jackson Police Department when the project was announced, praised the project because he believes sidewalks make it easy for people to move about and that’s good for their health. “We all know that sidewalks can benefit a community health wise,” he said.
Wade also said that Jackson has a large transient population concentrated in the north Jackson area and the sidewalks, lighting and other improvements should help prevent deaths that result from a driver in a vehicle hitting someone on foot.
“When you’re struck by a vehicle going 50, 60 miles an hour on the highway the likelihood of survival is low,” he said. “It’s very traumatic for everyone.”
In 2020, MDOT began as a separate project fencing underpasses on I-55 to safeguard the structures, some of which had become locations where homeless people gathered. Since the fencing was installed, homeless people now stand outside the fenced area.
MDOT fenced underpasses along the I-55 North including those in Jackson at Adkins Boulevard, Canton Mart Road and Northside Drive and one in Ridgeland that is north of County Line Road.
The fencing is meant to safeguard the structure. “It’s to preserve the safety and integrity of the bridge,” Flood said.
Trash fires set by vagrants in 2017 under a bridge on Valley Street at I-20 in Jackson damaged the bridge’s concrete deck and steel girders and Flood has said that is the reason why fencing is necessary. The westbound lanes of I-20 in Jackson were shut down for several days so that repairs costing $314,000 could be made.
