5th Street renovations underway in Columbus
COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Construction has started on 5th Street North near Downtown Columbus.
The city’s goal is to make the area more pedestrian friendly.
One problem in the area is speed.
“We’re trying to basically pull in the curbs to slow traffic down. Speed limit out here is 30 miles an hour, and we’ve found times and times again, people are going 40 miles an hour plus,” said Columbus City Engineer Kevin Stafford.
Safety cones and barrels are laid out down the road — giving drivers a preview of what’s to come.
The project begins near the intersection of 5th Street North and 5th Avenue north and will end near the intersection of Highway 45 and 9th Avenue North — roughly from the old Magnolia Bowl to the new Magg Dispensary.
Burns Dirt is the lead contractor.
Installing sidewalks is part of the first phase.
“This project entails a variety of (demolitions). Majority of it will be concrete pavement removal of the existing concrete apron,” said Neel Schaffer Project Engineer Cody Peak.
“We’ll have to make our saw cuts on the asphalts of the concrete. And then we’ll bring an excavator in, and we’ll dig it out, log it on a dump truck, haul it off, and then we’ll bring clean material back in … put new sidewalks down and new curbs and driveways and all that,” said Burns Dirt Site Supervisor Dylan Stafford.
City Engineer Kevin Stafford said the narrower lanes will make it easier for people to cross traffic and access businesses.
Medians will also be added in the latter phases to help.
So far, the weather has been favorable for the workers.
“Kind of cool, sunny, dry, fairly dry. It’s been really nice not having a lot of rain on us and hopefully it stays that way,” said Dylan Stafford.
“Once you start getting into November, December, January, even into February, you run into a lot periods where contractors lose days there… with rain and cold temperatures. Obviously, there are environmental factors that affect whether we can pour concrete, whether we can stripe. Different things go into it,” said Peak.
Project officials say the bulk of the project should be complete by the beginning of next year.
How you enter and exit businesses will also change.
“A lot of driveways you see will be reduced in size, so you can’t line up two or three vehicles all trying to exit at the same time. That’s a safety concern. So, this will narrow some of the driveways to make it safer for the ingress and egress coming in and out of these areas,” said Kevin Stafford.
The road pavement will be a part of the last phase.
80% of the project was funded by an MDOT grant and the remaining 20% was covered by the city.
