Transportation Commissioner Willie Simmons is on a mission to bring more money from the Mississippi Department of Transportation to the Delta.
But he cannot do it alone.
He made that very clear during his address to the Indianola Rotary Club this week.
Simmons, who built a solid reputation as a bipartisan politician during his over two decades as District 13 state senator, is calling for a bipartisan effort to get more money earmarked for Delta projects moving forward.
“I’m asking you to join me,” he told Indianola’s Rotarians.
Simmons took over as transportation commissioner for the central district in 2020, and he has been taking notes and running the numbers ever since.
According to a handout he gave Rotarians this week, the central district, and more specifically the area of the state west of I-55, has seen significantly less infrastructure investment than the area east of I-55. Expenditures of the 87 four-lane highways Phase I, II and III have run into the billions - $3.3 billion to be exact – while spending on the western side, our side, has totaled about half a billion over time.
MDOT earmarks after the 2021 legislative session totaled about $2.7 million for just over a half dozen road projects west of I-55. That’s compared to $27.7 million spread across over two dozen projects on the other side of the interstate.
Simmons said folks in Jackson, who are not from the Delta, will often point to return on investment as the main reason for not pushing more money our way.
The traffic count just doesn’t add up.
But Simmons says the traffic numbers are mainly due to a failure in the Legislature over the course of several decades.
He said if more investment dollars had come to the area early on, more businesses would have followed.
Simmons knows the harsh realities of economic development in the Delta, and that is why he is taking a unique approach as he plans to make his play for more infrastructure money.
He is proposing a four-lane Highway 61 from New Orleans to Memphis.
Simmons not only cites the tourism traffic that frequently follows the 61 corridor, but he also plans to present it as a security issue.
Simmons wants Highway 61 to serve as an alternate four-lane corridor to I-55.
He points out as hurricane season begins to accelerate that many on the coast utilize I-55 to escape from the Gulf’s fierce storms each year.
Opening up 61, he said, will give evacuees another route to safety.
He also points out that frequent delays along I-55 in Jackson could be avoided if traffic was rerouted in the event of an emergency or wreck.
Historically, this is not that far-fetched.
The Interstate Highway system itself was sold to Congress in the 1950s as a national security measure.
The vast majority of people use interstates for recreational travel, but they are technically in place to ensure ease of transport for military operations in the event of a national crisis.
Highway 61 is not an interstate, but if Mississippi’s congressional delegation treated it as so, it could bring the economic development results Simmons is gunning for.
“If you build it, they will come,” Simmons said, quoting James Earl Jones in Field of Dreams.
Simmons said billions of more dollars will be earmarked for MDOT projects in the coming years.
If folks in the Delta want to see more action on their highways, he said they better start talking to their senators and congressmen.
Nobody east of I-55 is shy about asking. Perhaps it’s time we start asking too.
