Barricade removed at Clinton intersection

By Randy Bell

A barricade aimed at preventing traffic accidents at a busy Clinton intersection is gone, replaced by plastic posts which are intended to serve the same purpose.

“It’s part of an effort to improve safety there,” says Michael Flood with the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT).

The barricade in front of McDonald’s on Springridge Road had been in place for almost three years. In December of 2023, then-mayor Phil Fisher announced that the entrance to MDOT’s frontage road – which serves McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Starbucks – was being blocked off at the Springridge-Broadway Street intersection to keep drivers from cutting across traffic leaving the shopping center on the western side of Springridge.

The barricade required vehicles going to McDonald’s to enter from the rear, while drivers headed to Taco Bell and Starbucks had to circle around behind McDonald’s to reach the frontage road. That’ll still be the case, because, even though the frontage road is no longer barricaded, the delineator posts at the entrance to the shopping center will prevent traffic turning off Springridge from using the frontage road entrance.

However, the new arrangement allows customers leaving those three restaurants to now exit the frontage road at the traffic light.

Some people weren’t happy when the barricade was installed. A McDonald’s management group based in Madison complained that the new traffic flow was an inconvenience to customers and was hurting the restaurant’s business. And a representative of the shopping center located behind McDonald’s recently urged the City to reopen the frontage road, saying maintenance costs had skyrocketed because of the increased traffic through the shopping center’s parking lot.

Flood says the plastic posts aren’t the final solution.

“We’re going to be putting up a permanent concrete curb there. The goal of this is to reduce accidents.”