NATCHEZ, Miss. – The mayor and city aldermen have contracted an urban-planning firm to do a traffic and parking study for downtown Natchez.
An Atlanta-based urban planning and architectural firm will be paid $29,200 to do the analysis of downtown streets and make recommendations. The study will review on-street and off-street parking and street-lane reconfigurations, said Richard Burke, the mayor’s executive assistant.
The study will encompass downtown Natchez west to east from Broadway to Martin Luther King streets and south to north from Orleans to Madison streets.
Burke noted it’ll include downtown traffic counts and flow assessments along with simulations that will lead to various recommendations, such as where to have intersection stop lights and two-way streets and how vehicles should be parked.
“There will be multiple options for y’all to go through,” Burke told the mayor and aldermen Monday as they green-lighted the study to be done.
They’ve been planning in recent months doing the downtown traffic study to include pros and cons of making Main Street one lane sided with diagonal parking in place of the current parallel spaces and converting one-way streets to two-way. They want to provide more parking spaces, thwart speeders and make the business district more pedestrian-friendly.
This comes as the city is preparing to resurface several downtown streets.
The study will be done by Tunnell, Spangler & Associates, or TSW, the Atlanta-based urban planning, architecture and landscaping design firm that employs a Mississippi State University-trained engineer who specializes in traffic planning.
In voting Monday to contract TSW to do the $29,200 study, aldermen canceled a previous agreement the board approved in February with Volkert to do such a study. Mayor Dan Gibson said TSW can do a more extensive traffic analysis at a cheaper cost than the Mobile-based firm, which was charging $39,000.
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Natchez-Adams County officials will try again to get contractors’ proposals for upgrading Morgantown Road with hopes costs won’t exceed what’s been budgeted for improving the dangerous, flood-prone thoroughfare.
Previous construction bids last year broke the budget and had to be rejected. Natchez aldermen Monday agreed to seek contractors’ new proposals in the coming weeks to review May 28.
“Let’s pray that this will come in on budget so we can begin work on Morgantown Road,” said Gibson. “That will truly be an answered prayer.”
Engineering plans have been revised for the long-delayed project to reduce costs. Natchez-Adams County has about $4 million in federal, state and local funds for the busy city-county road going north from Natchez. However, proposed construction plans from bidders have exceeded what’s allocated for widening the one-mile artery and correcting its drainage problems exacerbated by heavy rains.
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