Analysis: Work begins on Mississippi highway project — 20 years after being made priority

Tippah County, population about 20,500 in northeast Mississippi, was the state’s center of political power for one day this past week.

State Rep. Jody Steverson, a Republican who represents Tippah County, posted on social media, “I would like to personally invite every Tippah County citizen to this historic event… Never in our county’s history have the governor, lieutenant governor, and House speaker of Mississippi ever assembled in Tippah County simultaneously.”

Gov. Tate Reeves, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, House Speaker Jason White, as well as former Speaker Philip Gunn, were on hand for the ground-breaking of a project to four-lane about a 10-mile section of U.S. Highway 15 from the Tippah and Union counties line to about a mile north of Ripley, the county seat and largest city in Tippah County.

The ground-breaking was a big deal in Tippah County. The project has been on the drawing board since 2002 when the Legislature passed a bill called Vison 21 that established a method to four-lane highways in Mississippi based on needs and available money.

The section of U.S. 15 was on the initial Vison 21 map as an “immediate need.” More than two decades later, the state’s political leadership traveled to near the Tennessee state line to celebrate the ground-breaking.

Progress, finally.

Highway 15 has been in need of four-laning for decades, especially the section between New Albany in Union County and Ripley. Traffic on the two-lane road moves at a snail’s pace thanks in part to the big trucks at a furniture factory in the area and other businesses.

The ground-breaking more than two decades after U.S 15 was made a priority highlights the lack of funding the Department of Transportation has had for new highway construction projects. For more than a decade, the Department of Transportation has lacked enough money to maintain existing roads, much less construct new highways.

Thanks in large part to national economic conditions and federal funds, including the 2021 federal infrastructure bill, Mississippi currently has more money for roads and bridges. Mississippi has surplus funds that are being used, in part, on road and bridge needs. Work will begin soon on a few other highway projects.

But the surplus state money is not likely to last. The three Transportation commissioners and their executive director, Brad White, are still talking about the need for a source of new, sustained money to fund the state’s transportation needs on an ongoing basis. Central District Transportation Commissioner Willie Simmons focused on the need of a new source of revenue recently during the political stumping at the Neshoba County Fair.

Many also would argue that the lack of funding has been exacerbated at times by the Legislature passing bills to place projects above those cited as priorities by the process spelled out in Vision 21.

Gov. Reeves, who was no doubt the star in Tippah County at the ground-breaking, was blamed by some for bypassing the Vison 21 projects as lieutenant governor.

In 2014, the House voted to kill the Department of Transportation budget because of what House leaders described as the Senate leadership’s insistence on placing “pet projects” in the bill.

Those projects included the six laning of Lakeland Drive in suburban Jackson near where then-Lt. Gov. Reeves, who presided over the Senate, lived.

The issue of Lakeland Drive was a major one during Reeves’ successful 2019 gubernatorial bid as it came to light that part of the Lakeland Project included building a $2 million frontage road to make it easier for people in the gated neighborhood where Reeves lived to gain access to Lakeland Drive.

The access road was scrapped by the Transportation Commission after it made news. The addition of the extra lanes on Lakeland Drive was completed.

Reeves took credit for the six-laning of Lakeland, but said he had no input on the frontage road. But emails at the time indicated that members of his staff were in discussions with MDOT officials about the project.

Then-MDOT Executive Director Melinda McGrath said in correspondence with Reeves that the Legislature in budgeting money for projects such as Lakeland Drive was ignoring the Vison 21 priorities.

Work is finally beginning on Highway 15 in Tippah County and the governor said he is happy about it.

On social media he posted, “Stopped in Tippah County to break ground on a nearly $200 million Highway 15 expansion project. This massive investment will help further solidify Mississippi as a transportation hub for the country. Together, we’re making our infrastructure bigger and better than ever before.”

Slowly, that might be finally happening.

This analysis was produced by Mississippi Today, a nonprofit news organization that covers state government, public policy, politics and culture. Bobby Harrison is Mississippi Today’s senior Capitol reporter.