Tomorrow (Tuesday) from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m., the Central Mississippi Planning & Development District will host a Public Hearing on the draft of its 2035 Jackson Urbanized Transportation Plan. The hearing will take place at 1170 Lakeland Drive (same area as Smith Wills Stadium and Mississippi Ag Museum).

What does this all mean? Well, believe it or not, the federal government requires all urbanized areas to work together in planning a transportation system to benefit the entire region. That’s right: work together!

In order to do this, the metropolitan area (in our case, Hinds, Madison, and Rankin Counties) establish a Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) to coordinate transportation planning. The MPO is composed of elected officials, business leaders, and community leaders from the tri-county area.

So what does all this have to do with West Jackson? CMPDD prepares traffic forecasts and other data in order to recommend priority project upgrades. Improvements in West Jackson include:

• Reconstructing John R. Lynch Street from Wiggins Street to Highway 80 and installing sidewalks and a bike trail along the corridor.
• converting Capitol Street into a two-way roadway from State Street to Robinson St.
• converting the abandoned Little J Railroad into a pedestrian/bike trail from Valley St. to Highway 80
• converting Interstate 220 into a 6-lane highway
• Route recommendations for Jatran

There are also projects that have been identified as needed, but for which funding has not been located. For West Jackson, these include:

• Jackson Freeway SW–a new freeway that will connect I-55 and I-20
• Jackson West Parkway–a new 4-lane roadway that connects Clinton Blvd. and McRaven Road
• Metrocenter South Parkway–a new 4-lane roadway & bridge that connects John R. Lynch St. and Robinson Rd. Ext.
• Greenway Parkway–a new 4-lane roadway that connects Jackson West Pkwy to Robinson Rd. Ext. (this may be a widening of the roadway in front of Walmart)

Some of the unfunded project recommendations were the result of the recent Highway 80 corridor study that was funded by a grant to the city of Jackson.

If you would like to learn more about these projects, or have questions/concerns about them, make sure to attend tomorrow’s public hearing.

For actual announcement: Click here