If you’ve driven down a Mississippi road, you’ve endured the bumps, the potholes–and maybe you’ve changed your route because of closed bridges.
The Mississippi Economic Council called for people to send their complaints to the lawmakers to encourage them to make funding for repairing roads and bridges in Mississippi a priority.
Over 4,000 people responded in only 8 days. The MEC provided News Mississippi with 15 bound volumes of the responses.
“These are responses from every county in the state, 4,006,” said Blake Wilson, President and CEO of the Mississippi Economic Council. “Some of them have listed the bad roads in their areas and said ‘hey, we need these fixed.”
The 87 Highway Program established a proper transportation system in Mississippi, but Wilson said there was a major flaw.
“What’s happened is we didn’t put any maintenance dollars on that,” said Wilson.
Wilson added that economic impact of not properly maintaining Mississippi’s infrastructure is immense.
“Right now, there are trucks have to take as much as a 70 mile detour because of failed bridges,” said Wilson. “They just can’t afford that.”
If you want to submit a maintenance request to lawmakers, you can do so by visiting msroadsmatter.com.
