Traffic study delays Mannsdale school
MANNSDALE — A required traffic study tied to federal funding will delay construction of a new sixth-grade building on the grounds of the existing upper elementary school here.
The study involves Stribling Road and Mississippi 463 and traffic flow around the Mannsdale Upper Elementary School grounds.
“MDOT will specify the requirements of the study and it is expected to take 11 weeks to complete,” said Gene Wright, spokesperson for the Madison County School District.
Richard Burge, assistant Superintendent of the Madison County Schools, told county supervisors on Monday that the school building construction project had already been advertised but will be re-bid because bids came in over budget.
“Our initial bid was back in July, but it came in well over budget so we had to go back to the drawing board,” Burge said, adding that the district had since learned of the traffic study requirement from the Mississippi Department of Transportation mandated by the federal government.
The traffic study is required in order to receive $750,000 in Coronavirus relief funding the Legislature appropriated for the traffic project earlier this year.
The school construction project will not be rebid until after the traffic study is complete, Wright said.
“Our original completion date was May of 2023,” Burge said. “With this delay it will end up being about October or November 2023, meaning that we will probably move students in that building January 2024. We can’t move them in in the middle of a semester so we always try to move them in at the end of the semester or either during the summer.”
In March, the Board of Supervisors hired Stantec Consulting Services Inc. for $15,000 to produce preliminary design work and cost estimates for the intersection of Stribling Road and Mississippi 463 near the school site.
“This will give us a preliminary layout based on the study that was done for the school district out there so it will give us the turn lanes and the turn lane links that we need and also a cost estimate on what it would cost to upgrade this intersection,” Tim Bryan, county engineer told supervisors during the board’s March 15 meeting.
At the time, supervisors were concerned about how the construction of the turn lanes would be funded.
“The state is going to have to help the School Board,” District 2 Supervisor Trey Baxter said at the time. “We are going to have to have other sources. We can’t just go after this alone. We need to find other sources of revenue to help fund this project. The state or the School Board is going to have to help. The county can’t just go at it alone. This could easily be a million and a half, two million dollar project.”
The Mississippi Legislature later came through, specifically funding the turn lanes at Mississippi 463 and Stribling Road in House Bill 1413 in April apportioning $750,000 for the project from the state’s Highway Infrastructure Program funds included in the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental 304 Appropriations Act of 2021.
The Mississippi Department of Transportation sent a letter dated Sept. 21 to the Board of Supervisors advising them of the funding and outlining the procedure for obtaining the funds.
“These funds will be used in conjunction with other MDOT program funds to provide signalization and turn lanes currently warranted at this intersection,” the letter states, adding that the Madison County School District’s site plan for the new school includes a new access location at Mississippi 463 and Stribling Road.
After reviewing a traffic study, MDOT along with contractors and the school district determined the site needed improvement in circulation for parents picking up and dropping off students at both schools to ensure efficiency on Mississippi 463, the letter states.
“This improvement to the site circulation plan will help keep congestion of mainline traffic flow to a minimum,” the letter states. “The Madison County School District will be required to submit their proposed circulation plan prior to issuance of the permit.”
Burge told supervisors on Monday that the school district had only learned of the letter last week and held a meeting last Friday to discuss it with county representatives and MDOT representatives.
“That was the first time we had heard that we were required to do a traffic circulation plan for the two campuses,” Burge said. “We called a meeting with MDOT and Madison County officials last Friday and confirmed what we needed to do and right now we are in the process of getting two quotes for the traffic circulation plan and it is our understanding that shouldn’t take long and we will move forward with that and take care of that.”
The Madison Schools District has been planning to build a new sixth-grade school for at least a year and chose the Mannsdale Upper Elementary site after plans to build a similar school near Germantown Middle School fell through last year due to zoning restrictions and prohibitive costs of land acquisition, school officials said.