Box culvert, other work on Main Street nears completion

Workers are nearly finished with the  project to put a large capacity box culvert under Main Street where the Tanglefoot Trail bridge crosses Main.

Excavation work for the new culvert started in October.

The actual installation of the culvert is complete. Friday afternoon a Paul Smithey Construction Company crew was milling — grinding down — the old pavement.

A remote-controlled machine is used to pack down the backfill atop the new box culvert.

They also used a remote-controlled heavy roller machine to pack down the backfill on top of the new culvert in preparation for paving. It is expected that the new asphalt will be put down Tuesday, November 22, and traffic on Main Street should return to normal by Thanksgiving Day. This puts completion of the project considerably ahead of its original May of 2017 completion target.

Installation of the culvert under Main Street followed completion of the work to cover a 500-foot  open ditch that ran from Main Street to Carter Avenue. That work was done using sections of round galvanized culvert.

Last month, five hundred feet of concrete pavement was installed over the route of what was formerly an open ditch. This work has extended the effective length of the Tanglefoot Trail by connecting it to Park-Along-the-River’s bike and hiking trails on the right bank of the Little Tallahatchie River.

This project, once complete, will contribute to the goal of making Tanglefoot a “century ride” for bicyclists. Tanglefoot, a part of the National Trails System, for hikers and bicyclists, now runs 43.5 miles from downtown New Albany to Houston, Miss. The goal is to increase the total round trip circuit to 100 miles, a “century ride.”

A $100,000 federal  grant from the Department of Transportation to MS Wildlife and Fisheries, passed through the state government to the City of New Albany, helped finance the project to cover the open ditch and extend the Tanglefoot Trail.

For more information on how the “Century Ride” will be achieved, see: Park-Along-the River Improvements,