The Mississippi Department of Transportation will be meeting with Lamar County Engineer Don Walker within the next two weeks to work through details about the proposed roundabout at the intersection of Oak Grove and Weathersby roads in Hattiesburg.
Walker discussed the proposal with the Lamar County Board of Supervisors in August 2018. He said the work had received a project number on July 12 from MDOT. The City of Hattiesburg later approved a Memorandum of Understanding with Lamar County for the roundabout.
MDOT is working with Lamar County supervisors on the planning of the proposed roundabout.
The two-lane round-about is intended to relieve traffic congestion during busy hours.
Walker said the next meeting with MDOT is important. “We’re going through a review process with MDOT because they will need to concur with the layout and design,” he said. “A critical component of any roundabout is to be big enough and alerting traffic to how the roundabout functions. So, you’ve got to have adequate signage for the approach to direct traffic for either through movement or roundabout movement.”
Roundabouts are few and far between in the Pine Belt, so Walker believes a learning curve exists.
“Once (people) go through (the roundabout) several times, they’ll see how it operates,” he said. “Roundabouts can accommodate fairly large amounts of traffic. It’s just a matter of people learning it and getting used to it. It’s a different concept, it’s a big area, it is not necessarily unique, and MDOT uses them all over the State of Mississippi.”
Walker said he hopes the roundabout will accomplish its purpose.
“Some are too small, and some are not handled correctly,” Walker said. “You are going to have areas of conflict in a traffic circle, but we are trying to minimize those particular points of conflict. I think the way we have it laid out is going to do that.”
