MS 57/63 four-lane scheduled to open August 22

[NE2]

http://www.gomdot.com/Home/MediaRoom/NewsReleases/PressReleaseDetail.aspx?ID=88201140111
This is the last piece of a four-lane corridor mostly following US 45 from the Gulf of Mexico through eastern Mississippi and western Tennessee and Kentucky, ending at Paducah (where you can continue north via I-24 and I-57).

http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=31.1761&lon=-88.5021&zoom=13&layers=M

[Alex]

Excellent, I may have the chance to drive that on September 2.

[NE2]

It's supposed to have opened, but all I can find is articles from Monday saying it's going to open on Monday...
http://www.gomdot.com/home/mediaroom/newsreleases/PressReleaseDetail.aspx?ID=8192011125949
http://www.sunherald.com/2011/08/22/3366820/highway-project-to-open-in-george.html

[Alex]

Four-lane through county now open (Greene County Herald). Required a login, but they did have a paragraph from the article posted today:

The four-lane stretch of U.S. Highway 63/57 is now complete and the $42.1 million dollar project now connects U.S. Highway 45 directly to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Once crossing the two-lane highway 63 outside Leakesville, it becomes U.S. Highway 57. The project has been long anticipated by many residents as it will give central Greene County residents a direct route to U.S. Highway 98 and allow the many county residents who travel daily to Pascagoula for work to shave nearly a half an hour off their daily commute.

[Alex]

Drove the new highway this afternoon. Nice road, devoid of traffic. None of the intersections are signed presently, including the north end of old MS-57 where resurfacing is underway. The median curiously expands quite a bit where the old alignment comes in. There is also a wide grassy swath from where the original four-lanes tapered down into the old two-lane route to Leakesville.

All shields for MS-63's old alignment are now gone from US 98. The control points for MS-63 north are greened out as well.

Guide signs in each direction of US 98 for MS 63 were replaced, so the signs installed in 2000 with the greened out "Leakesville" control point never displayed Leakesville in their lifespan...



The county line between George and Greene Counties are marked along the new MS-63.



Approaching the diamond interchange where MS-57 bumps MS-63 from the new expressway.



MS-57 & 63 share a wrong-way overlap into Leakesville. Old MS-57 is now unnumbered (even though it is a more direct route from Leakesville to State Line). Old MS-63 to the southeast is also numbered, which leads me to wonder if MS-594 is still signed as a dangling route?



The stretch of MS-63 to the west of Lucedale opened in late 2000. 11 years later, the scene on the approach to the diamond interchange with US 98.

[Crazy Volvo Guy]

MS really needs to learn that hard shoulders are not just for full freeways... this is 2011, not 1951.

[codyg1985]

MS really needs to learn that hard shoulders are not just for full freeways... this is 2011, not 1951.

Agreed.

I am curious...it looks like open-graded friction course pavement was used for the new sections of that expressway. Is that the case?