“Mississippians are going to see a lot of orange in the time to come,” says MDOT Executive Director Brad White.
According to the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT), over $964 million in projects were approved in Fiscal Year 2022 – an all-time high for the department.
This week, MDOT Executive Director Brad White appeared before lawmakers at the state Capitol to discuss the department’s three-year project plan.
“The three-year plan is a document that the staff here at the Department of Transportation puts together that’s kind of a snapshot in time because there’s a lot of different variables that may cause it to be adjusted throughout the year,” Director White said.
White says residents are about to see the projects ramp up in the months ahead.
“Mississippians are going to see a lot of orange in the time to come,” White told Magnolia Tribune.
White said the plan illustrates to the public, the Legislature and Federal Highway where the Department of Transportation is intending to invest their resources. Projects range from paving and safety projects to making use of lottery funds to operational projects such as turn lanes and signals.
He added that it is reflective across the state that there is some type of project going on in all of Mississippi’s 82 counties.
“Most of our paving is needs-based where we evaluate the condition of the pavement or the concrete and try to determine what needs the quickest attention,” White said.
Capacity projects are also on tap. He said the capacity projects category “gets a lot of attention.”
“Those are the larger construction projects where we go in and build a bypass or widen a section of highway or interstate to allow for it to properly handle larger capacity traffic on that particular route,” White said.
The capacity projects are a little different in that the three Transportation Commissioners set the priorities and specifically choose to invest in those projects.
White said the problem the department faces is that even though they had the largest budget in the history of MDOT, there are still more needs than resources.
“We also have to take into account the amount of work that contracts and others are able to absorb,” the MDOT director continued. “In no way do we try to pretend that this is a document that illustrates that we’re taking care of all of our needs, but it’s showing where the resources we do have are able to make the biggest difference and trying to create a safe and efficient transportation system that also allows for economic development opportunities among other things like that.”
White emphasized that the three-year project plan is only “snapshot in time.” He said situations arise with paving programs, for example, where the department may receive only one bid on a project, and it may exceed the amount they are comfortable with awarding to that project.
“In other words, if a bid comes in more than 10% of what our state estimate is, there has to be certain circumstances in place that will allow us to move forward and spending that extra money to award that contract,” White said. “Sometimes you see paving projects that get pushed from one ear to another or something like that because of things like we’re not receiving a bid on a project or the bids that we are receiving are coming in too high.”
The MDOT Executive Director said that there are also situations like the ice storm in North Mississippi or a hurricane in South Mississippi that would bring in unexpected damages that would cause the need for the redirection of resources.
“That’s the reason that I stress that the three-year plan is a snapshot in time and its intended purpose is to illustrate to the Legislature how we’re planning to invest the resources we have and in what areas,” White said.
Anne Summerhays
