Officials from the City of Petal have begun the process of acquiring land for the Mathews Branch pedestrian/bike path project, with will entail a path that runs along that branch from Southern Bowling Lanes on South Main Street to Petal City Park near the Petal Family Branch YMCA.
That measure was secured at the August 20 meeting of the Petal Board of Aldermen, where Mayor Tony Ducker said once the properties along that stretch of land are secured, the city will put the project out to bid.
“That’ll have a lot to say on our timeline,” he said. “I still think we can still get a shovel in the ground some time in the spring when it’s all said and done.
“Once the project starts, other than weather, I don’t think anything will slow it down, so it should be a fairly quick process from that point.”
The project is made possible with the help of an $862,560 grant from the Mississippi Department of Transportation that was approved in 2021. That plan was approved after a project that would have seen a new sidewalk from West 10th Avenue and South Main Street down Morris Avenue, near Petal Middle School, was scrapped in favor of the Mathews Branch project.
“This seemed a preferable route over the original route; we are dealing with less property owners, and this should be less invasive and less detrimental to our business community as well,” Ducker said in a previous story.
Per terms of the contract, officials were required to put the project out to bid by the end of this year through MDOT.
“It takes you a long time to get to this point, and there’s been a lot of work behind the scenes,” Ducker said. “But I think people will be glad whenever we get this project done and residents can start using that area.”
Ducker said the path will be a huge boon to the city, especially as it will open up the interior of the city to pedestrians looking to travel through downtown.
“(They’ll) be able to access the river park and access the new (East Hardy Street) bridge, the Longleaf Trace,” he said. “It just has a lot of possibilities of what this could be down there within the next five years or so.
“And obviously, it will give our police department and first responders access to that area more readily, so I think that can be a really neat part of the project as well. You’ve got people walking up and down that area now as is, and we don’t really have as much access from a city standpoint to that area, so this will open up that area to have our personnel get down there and maintain the area and make it look nicer as well.”
