Broad Street Community Meeting Summary and Feedback Opportunity
May 13th, 2021
Dear Residents and Business Owners,
Tuesday evening, we held a Broad Street Redevelopment project community meeting at First Baptist Church on Government Street regarding the ongoing traffic issues related to the Dauphin Street intersection closure. We appreciated the time and feedback from the citizens who were able to attend. Below is a summary of the information presented at the meeting as well as directions to provide feedback on potential alterations to the detour to improve conditions for drivers and residents.
1. Project Overview
- The overall goal of the Broad Street Redevelopment project is to revitalize one of the most widely used corridors in Mobile with new modernized street surfaces, bicycle lanes, and handicapped-accessible sidewalks.
- The project also includes traffic calming measures like the new roundabout at the intersection of Canal and Broad and fewer, narrower travel lanes.
- Upgrades to stormwater drainage, gas and water lines, sewer lines, lighting, traffic signals, and landscape architecture are also included.
2. Current Construction Schedule
- Construction on the Dauphin Street intersection is proceeding on time. It is currently projected to open in July, weather permitting.
- The area past the Dauphin Street intersection up to Government Street will be under construction until early Fall, then will open to traffic.
- We are working on the plan for the Government Street intersection construction now.
3. Improving the Traffic Detour
- Lt. John Angle presented potential options for improving the traffic detour and reducing the flow of traffic through the neighborhoods.
- One option was installing water-filled jersey barriers at specific locations to send a message about cutting through neighborhoods by diverting drivers back to where they came from. With no options of going around, ignoring barricades, or physically moving barricades, drivers would not return to these cut-through streets to avoid the detour.
- These barriers would be located to the interior of the streets, rather than at the intersection of Dauphin Street or Old Shell Road for safety purposes. The barriers would also stop people from getting stuck at a dead-end closure and forcing cars and trucks to turn around in citizen’s driveways or attempt to dangerously reverse down narrow streets like Common. The position of these barricades would also stop many reported issues like trailers jackknifing and damaging grass, concrete curbs, and other personal property.
- The maps below show the location of the water-filled barriers, which would be in addition to traffic signs, warning signs, and barriers.
We need your feedback!
Your feedback on any proposed traffic control plan changes will be extremely helpful. We are collecting feedback for the next seven days, and we would appreciate any input you are willing to provide about the information above. You may reply to this email or send an email to broadstreet@cityofmobile.org to have your input reflected. We are accepting feedback until May 20, 2021.
In the interim, the City of Mobile’s project staff, engineers, traffic engineers, members of the construction team, and representatives from the MPD will continue to monitor the situation. Please remember MPD is enforcing the current traffic detour and will be ticketing anyone who disturbs or destroys any traffic barricades or signage (including chaining or tying). Officers are also enforcing the posted speed limits.
We look forward to continued conversations with the community about this important project and working together to address any issues that are occurring.
Jennifer Greene
Director Programs and Project Management
Public Works