Traffic relief could come soon to the expanding south Madison county. The Board of Supervisors gave a contract to Stantec Consulting Services to design a, “conceptual layout and opinion of probable cost for the intersection of Stribling Road at Highway 463,” while requesting that the consultants do not exceed $15,000 drawing up plans.
“The school board did a traffic impact study that determined what needed to happen at that intersection. They’re gonna add a new western approach to it. This project will take that study and draw up a simple set of plans and get a cost estimate to distribute the cost to the three parties involved.”
Funding the project is complicated because of who has the rights and authority of the roads. Highway 463 is an MDOT road, while Stribling Road is under control of the Madison County Board of Supervisors. Another party interested in funding the project is the Madison County School District. They recently conducted a traffic study at the intersection in anticipation of the new school that is coming to the district in 2023.
The school is needed as the number of students in the school district has increased by 431 students since 2017. That’s at least 400 families that have moved to the county since 2017. And residential projects have shown similar growth. Around some 750 lots have come to south Madison County since the beginning of 2021.
The expansion in population requires roads to be repaved and widened. For example, the Bozeman Road is adding two lanes to lanes to deal with the intense traffic that has appeared recently. Also, the Reunion Parkway is going to help the increasing number of commuters cross east and west across the southern part of the county.
Whether or not the county will add lanes or a traffic signal at the intersection remains to be seen.
But, the county recently gave Adcamp Construction Company a near $2 million contract to overlay roads in Madison County.
