(MOBILE, Ala.) If you've ever driven on McGregor Avenue during the morning hours or evenings after work you know how big of a headache the intersection can be at Airport Boulevard.
When Local 15's crew went out around 5:30 Monday afternoon, traffic was bumper to bumper.
Tuesday, the Mobile city council will vote to extend an agreement with the state on the preliminary engineering aspects of a project set to widen the road.
You won't see construction for a couple years, but engineers are throwing ideas around now.
Widening the road could include adding a center turn lane on McGregor and sidewalks between Airport and Dauphin street.
It isn't hard to find drivers with complaints about the heavy congestion on McGregor Avenue.
"It's a bottleneck situation," driver Mark Giuffria said.
"It's backed up a lot and it needs to be widened," said driver Wade Vollmer.
"Trying to get out of the other shopping center to get into here I had to go around the block. It's not good. There was a ton of traffic," said shopper Dorothy Ginsberg as she was leaving the Fresh Market.
But the city says help is on the way. Construction on the road is slated to begin in 2015.
"It needs to happen. It's not going to get better it's only going to get worse," said Ginsberg.
The federal government is paying 80% of the total bill. The city will pay 20%, which is roughly $4 million. Taxpayers that talked to Local 15 were okay with that price.
"It's not that much because you will get it back. Because people will frequent this road more often and your tax base it's going to go up from people shopping at these stores nearby," said Giuffria.
"I know it sounds like a lot of money but when you think about what the cost of infrastructure is and how much we need to improve our infrastructure, it's really just a drop in the bucket," said Ginsberg.
Talks of this project have actually been going on for a couple years.
Initially construction was set to begin in 2017 but transportation planners moved this project up in priority, freeing up federal money sooner.
