Plan in the works for sidewalks on Highway 49

Over the past few years there have been a number of pedestrian involved accidents on Highway 49 in Gulfport. Now, a plan to build sidewalks along the busy highway is in the works.

The city is in the early stages of conducting a study to determine things like the safest paths for pedestrians and how much construction would cost.

The City of Gulfport is planning to put $30,000 towards the study and the Gulf Regional Planning Commission is also planning on spending $120,000 of federal highway money.

The proposed sidewalk would be built between Creosote Road south and the Turkey Creek Bridge. “We are just trying to make things safer and more pedestrian friendly and that’s an area you have a lot of pedestrians crossing the highway. It is six lanes so they are crossing the highway in between traffic signals and it just is really dangerous. We have got to do something to make that better.”

There is no exact timeline on the study or the project yet.