NATCHEZ, Miss. – City aldermen are praising a traffic engineer’s recommendations for all-way stops at Natchez intersections as an effective way to slow down speeding motorists.
“We’re trying to calm down the traffic in downtown Natchez,” said Alderman Curtis Moroney.
Removing green lights from Main and Franklin streets’ traffic signals is among engineer Bert Kuyrkendall’s recommendations, but Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson said implementing such changes is not a high priority for him now. “We’re not even talking about doing this yet,” he said.
In making a presentation Tuesday to the mayor and Board of Aldermen, Kuyrkendall also recommended making the currently one-way Main and Franklin streets two-way.
Gibson said any downtown traffic reconfigurations should be put on the backburner until downtown streets get new pavements, which could be in another year. While resurfacing plans have been delayed, the mayor said a company will be testing a method that could be less expensive and more feasible than before.
He also pointed to the public criticism and “resulting fallout” of the traffic study’s recommended changes.
The mayor and aldermen last April contracted Kuyrkendall to do the downtown traffic study amid concerns about speeding motorists, pedestrian safety, lack of parking and other issues.
Replacing green lights with all-way stops at Main and Franklin’s various intersections with other streets would make motorists more heedful. They must make intermittent stops block-by-block as they drive the downtown thoroughfares. “It calms you down knowing you’ve got to stop again,” Moroney said.
Making Main and Franklin two-way is also considered a method to slow traffic as drivers would be more cautious than in the free-range one-way streets.
Gibson pointed to the public “outcry” he’s heard about seeing Kuyrkendall’s recommendations that have encountered some resistance about implementation. However, Alderman Felicia Bridgewater Irving expressed hopes that this “great plan … is not something that would just sit on the shelf.”
Alderman Sarah Carter Smith – expressing concerns about speeding motorists imperiling downtown pedestrians – encouraged the public to be “open-minded” about Kuyrkendall’s suggestions.
His traffic analysis and recommendations covered various streets beyond Main and Franklin, such as sections of Canal, Broadway, Commerce, Pearl, Martin Luther King, John Quitman, St. Catherine and East Franklin.
Gibson said Kuyrkendall’s traffic report should be posted on the city’s website for the public to see and provide feedback to him and aldermen.
The study’s contracted cost was about $29,000. Kuyrkendall is a Chattanooga, Tenn.-based civil engineer with TSW, an urban-planning firm.
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