Old Taylor Road will remain closed due to construction that will last until August.
Members of the Oxford community have mixed emotions about the $6.8 billion project to add double-lane roundabouts to Old Taylor Road and hope the inconvenience will be worth it in the end.
Talbot Brothers Contracting Co. has been working on the Old Taylor Road bridge since the end of the 2014 spring semester. The construction has caused a permanent shutdown of one of the main roads people use to get around the city. Although new detours have become available to the community members who live on Old Taylor Road, the congestion of traffic has increased.
Chase Buchanan, customer service representative at BancorpSouth, takes one of the detours during his morning commute to work. Buchanan is understanding with the construction going on in Oxford and hopes the new roundabouts will manage the growing traffic.
“Like everyone, I am cautious of change, but I’m happy to see Oxford growing and so far the traffic has not been an unbearable inconvenience,” Buchanan said.
The roundabouts will be at each end of the bridge on Old Taylor Road over Highway 6, and then there will be a second lane added in each direction to the north-south bridge, along with a sidewalk on the east side.
Reanna Mayoral, assistant city engineer for the city of Oxford, also believes the project will slow down the growing congestion of traffic and will also provide a safe way for pedestrians to cross the highway.
“I often saw students heading to class walking across that bridge and am so thankful there will now be a safe way for them to cross,” Mayoral said.
The new project is intended to reduce the growing traffic, keep the pedestrians who walk around Oxford safer and reduce accidents.
But not everyone is happy about the summer constructions and upcoming roundabouts. Junior elementary education major Mary Claire Stennett feels the construction and detours are inconvenient. She thinks the new roundabouts will only bring more traffic to Oxford.
“I feel like it’ll be worse. The ones on South Lamar are a pain because nobody knows what they’re doing and traffic gets backed up,” Stennett said.
According to Watt Bishop, a member of the planning committee of Oxford, the roundabouts are just a step to bettering the community of Oxford. He thinks the city of Oxford needs to look at the bigger picture in order to control congested traffic and keep Oxford environmentally friendly.
“We are putting people in living conditions where they can’t operate without a car,” Bishop said.
He believes Oxford has become car-centric and that in order to help the growth of traffic, the community and university need to create an environment where people can live without a car.
“There are places in America that have dealt with growth and emphasize people being able to ride their bike to work, take shuttles. Live in places where there’s a park, grocery store, there’s a church, there’s something for you do that you don’t have to do in a car,” Bishop said.
Although community members have differing feelings toward the new roundabouts, the plan is to build the roundabouts and have them re-open on time for the fall semester. The Mississippi Department of Transportation plans to have the bridge finished by Aug. 15, before the first day of classes.
