Controversy has been raging along the Gulf Coast

Controversy has been raging along the Gulf Coast over plans by the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) to build a 128-foot-wide highway bridge between Biloxi and Ocean Springs. Hurricane Katrina knocked the decking off the Highway 90 bridge that spanned Biloxi Bay. Participants in the Mississippi Renewal Forum saw the destruction as an opportunity to realign the highway in Biloxi and rebuild the bridge as a relatively narrow 64-foot-wide structure that would distribute its through traffic into the street grid of Ocean Springs and help the city nurture a pedestrian-scale, mixed-use waterfront district. Mayor Connie Moran and other Ocean Springs officials responded enthusiastically to the Forum’s ideas, which they saw as fostering a more livable city and boosting the tax base. MDOT vehemently resisted, arguing that there was too little time to negotiate a change of alignment and that the state needed to act quickly to use federal emergency funds to erect a bridge that would have six lanes of vehicular traffic and four breakdown/emergency lanes, plus space for pedestrians and bicyclists. DOT Commissioner Wayne Brown claimed the wider bridge — nicknamed “Bridgezilla” by critics — would be necessary because of future increases in traffic. Opponents, including Ocean Springs Alderman-at-Large Julia Weaver, said DOT’s traffic projections were wrong. Weaver insisted that the federal government would approve a smaller (and much less expensive) bridge. Whether MDOT is willing to work with South Mississippians “is very much in doubt,” the Biloxi Sun Herald editorialized Dec. 18. Leland Speed, executive director of the Mississippi Development Authority, joined the opposition to the large bridge, saying on Jan. 3, “We have a beautiful plan, and quite frankly, this impairs that plan dramatically.” MDOT is an independent agency with its own elected commissioners; unlike transportation departments in other states, it does not answer to the governor.