GREENVILLE, Miss.–A groundbreaking ceremony for phase II of the Hwy. 82 by[ass project will be held Monday morning at 10 at the Greenville Higher Education Center parking lot on Hwy. 1. The Mississippi Dept. of Transportation is beginning the second part of constructing the new leg of highway, a project that was started 20 years ago, but soon went dormant because money ran out.
“For 20 years that project stayed on the books,” said Transportation Commission Chairman Willie Simmons, last week.
“We the commissioners came in a few years ago and we moved that project to construction.”
Simmons and Norther District Transportation Commissioner John Caldwell have been advocating for a dedicated revenue source for maintenance and “capacity” projects. They say the only steady revenue source, the gas tax, is not enough, since less money is coming in than when it was established in 1987.
“It’s costing us more money to build today than it would have done then (20 years ago). With inflation going the way it is, capacity projects that we delay today are only going to cost us more money and delay the process of putting Mississippi where it should be in recruiting industry and maintaining industry,” said Simmons.
He estimated last week that Mississippi has about $9 billion worth of “capacity projects” that need attention. Those are large, one-time projects. He also saiud that Mississippi transportation needs about $450 million per year to maintain roads and bridges. Commissioners are asking state lawmakers to make transportation a priority when crafting this year’s budget.
