[10/08/02]Interstate 20 traffic just across the Mississippi River from Vicksburg has been reduced to one lane in an attempt to cut the number of wrecks on the bridge.

“Since they’ve moved the traffic down to one lane, traffic’s been flowing extremely well, ” Delta Police Marshal Tim Williams said. “We’ve had no backup and no accidents.”

The change was instituted Saturday.

He said 26 wrecks have been reported from the Delta exit to the Mississippi side of the bridge, about three miles, in the year ending in September.

Williams said four have been reported in the past three weeks. Injuries have been reported in most of the wrecks, and traffic has been stopped for two to three hours for each of the wrecks, causing congestion for 10 miles. Williams said clearing the congestion can take three to four hours.

Like other officials, he attributes many of the accidents to lane closures on the bridge because of an ongoing painting project.

The construction project requires one lane of the 30-year-old span to be closed to traffic while workers from Texas Bridge Inc. sand and paint the superstructure.

The work began in 1999 and is expected to continue through the spring.

Officials from the Louisiana State Police and the Louisiana Department of Transportation backed up the closure, hoping motorists would slow down before they get to the span, the only way across the Mississippi River between Greenville and Natchez.

Marshall Hill, project engineer for the LDOTD, said the move to one-lane traffic was to slow traffic down, since officials believe excessive speeds were also to blame for the wrecks.

“We hope the corrective actions that LDOTD has made at our suggestion will decrease the amount of wrecks,” said Cameron Douglas, public information officer for Louisiana State Police Troop F.

Because highway patrolmen have a designated stretch of highway to work that includes several hundred miles, they cannot be stationed at a specific spot, said Douglas.

“Drivers are going to have to take care of themselves to a certain degree,” he said. “We are not going to be able to patrol that area more frequently unless we are hired off-duty.”

Their focus is on high-crash zones, where wrecks occur every day or every other day, he said. Because of the recent wrecks, he said the bridge may become a high-crash zone, but isn’t yet.

Douglas also said that a patrolman stationed near the bridge could cause more wrecks when people see the patrol car and slam on brakes.