New bypass and redlights, good for Madill?

For quite some time now, the new lights at the intersection of highways 377 and 70 in Madill have been a concern of residents. The Madill Record reported in August 2023 about concerns raised by local residents on the intersection and how the new lights and new construction of Allsups would impact the flow of traffic.

The new lights have since been installed and people are still talking about them. The current situation is that the new lights are malfunctioning due to one of the cameras on the lights not working causing the system to reset manually. City officials are working with representatives from TLS, a support management group that is a commercial traffic light and safety contracting company and from Gridsmart, the company that designed the software that runs the lights.

Together, they will be on site to resolve any issues the system is currently experiencing and to install a software patch for the failsafe mode the system goes into when the camera is not working properly. Even with the new lights working properly, will this elevate the concerns and issues with this intersection that have existed for decades?

The increase of population paired with the truck traffic that commute through the cityonadailybasishasbeena concern for city officials even before Allsups and the new lights were installed. City manager James Fullingim said the intersection is a cause for concern.

“The traffic flow through there is just crazy,” Fullingim said. “You have every highway 70 car and highway 377 car merging in one stop, so it is a very busy intersection.'

“This area has been heavy with traffic for decades,” he continued about the concerns of the intersection. “There are too many cars on highway 70 for just a two-lane highway.”

TheUS-70Realignmentor bypass is not slated to start until 2027, the area and concerns are sure to continue to grow during that time.

“The highway realignment or bypass would help to alleviate a lot of the traffic including the trucks that come through town, that would not be coming though the town if that bypass was built.” Fullingim said and agreed that the bypass would help alleviate traffic.

“Is it actually going to happen? Eventually it will, I just hope I will be alive to see it.” Fullingim joked about the project which has been on ODOT’s radar since the 1990’s.

According to ODOT’s website, a feasibility study of the area was completed in 1997, about the future travel demands, safety concerns, and traffic congestion. The current phase of the bypass is still in the Right of Way acquisitions as well as the utility relocation phase.

Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) at the intersection for both highway 377 and 70 combined is 14,000 vehicles. The bypass is predicted to alleviate around 5,800 cars per day coming off of highway 70, according to information that was handed outbyODOTatapublicmeeting in May of 2022.

Until then, residents are concerned about traffic accidents thatcontinuetohappen even with the new light and left hand turn lanes added. John Gondi, who owns the Madill Express, said he is concerned about his customers who try to turn in and out of this parking lot.

“Therearenumerousnear misses and accidents that happen in the parking lot here.” Gondi said. The most recentonewasonThanksgiving Day. “A customer came in asking if I had video of the parking lot to show to the police.' he said about the incident.