By james art FORREST COUNTY, Miss. (WDAM) – The City of Hattiesburg and the Forrest County Board of Supervisors are teaming up to try to replace two bridges.
Two bridges form Glendale Avenue: one in Forrest County and the other in the Hattiesburg city limits.
However, both are collapsing.
“Having bridges that are leaking or needing to be replaced, that’s a statewide problem,” Hattiesburg Mayor Toby Barker said.
One spans the Bouye river and the other runs over the railway lines.
“Fortunately in Hattiesburg and Forrest County, we’ve been able to get ahead of some of that, but it’s going to be necessary going forward,” Barker said.
According to the Hattiesburg City Council resolution, these bridges are expected to be in poor condition as early as 2026.
So, city and county leaders decided to team up.
“So what we’re doing is we’re partnering with Forrest County to apply for a grant to the Federal Highway Administration to hopefully help cover a lot of the cost of replacing those bridges, which will would be very expensive to do,” said Hattiesburg City Council President Jeffrey George.
The money comes from the “Bridge Investment Program,” which the city and county applied for together in the past but did not receive.
“It’s a very competitive program,” Barker said. “By continuing to apply for it, you are moving your project further and further up the food chain in the eyes of the Department of Transport.”
Those bridge replacements cost about $54.2 million. Leaders say they need to get some kind of grant funding.
“You know the cost is something else,” said Forrest County Board President Terry Bell. “I mean, you find that the cost of a couple of bridges at one point in time has actually doubled in a couple of years. So it’s very important for us to continue to get some grants for them.
The Bridge Investment Program will fund more than $2 billion in bridge repairs and replacements across the country in fiscal year 2025.
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