Video: New Highway Expansion Is Celebrated

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TUPELO, Miss. (WCBI) — The completion of a new highway marks the opportunity for new growth and development in Northeast Mississippi. It has been years in the making, but today, numerous state and local officials celebrated the new highway.

The dedication of the new Mississippi highway 6/ U.S. 278 marks the completion of more than 10  years of hard work to provide a safe, new 4-lane corridor.

This 10 mile stretch will connect the Tupelo region to Batesville. That means another four-lane link across the northern part of the state.

“Well, it’s a celebration of wonderful, new, safer access to so many,” Senator Nancy Collins said.

Transportation Commissioner, Mike Tagert says the emphasis is two-fold.

“Public Safety first and foremost. And then also this leads to a lot of economic development opportunity.  Having a divided four-lane highway is no
longer optional for businesses that are trying to locate in your region. The business community in our nation, they have too many options and when you have divided four-lane highways, it certainly represents a transportation artery that they can take advantage of and exploit. And that’s what we want to provide, a safer transportation system and one that builds for the
future,” Tagert said.

Although the final link will not open to traffic for a few more days as a result of a weather delay, the project still represents years of dedicated partnerships.

“This is a picture of what we want our state to look like. Opening up new horizons, going places that we’ve never been before and also the newness gives us hope that together we can work out anything, ” Collins said.

“It’s all apart of a big team effort in order to make a public asset like this a reality,” Tagert said.

The $60 million dollar project is funded by state and federal highway dollars and the Appalachian Developmental Highway System.

Officials say another benefit is taking heavy truck traffic off city and county roads.