Capt. Bill Field helps direct a Vicksburg Fire Department truck trying to navigate a turn from Marcus Street onto Halls Ferry Road Wednesday.(Jon Giffin The Vicksburg Post)

[1/29/04]The cutout for a new Halls Ferry Road median at Marcus Street will be shortened to make way for fire and other trucks to make right turns there.

“Before we get ready to pour (concrete) that we’ll make sure that it works,” Vicksburg Public Works Director James “Bubba” Rainer said after a test Wednesday.

Comments for and against the lighting, landscaping and beautification project by city crews have arisen since work began last week.

The design problem was discovered Wednesday after asphalt and subsurface had been cut and removed, but before concrete for a curb had been installed.

Any vehicles waiting in the turn lane had always moved to make way for fire trucks that needed to make the turn, Vicksburg Fire Department Capt. Bill Field said.

“People are good about getting out of our way safely,” Field said. But the curb would have posed an obstacle, requiring pumpers to run over it or back up and realign before proceeding.

No fire station is in the area, and Field said making that particular turn would be rare.

“I’ve been here 26, years and I haven’t had an emergency call coming this way,” he said.

Alternate north-south streets parallel to Halls Ferry are available from Marcus Street east of the intersection, he added.

The cutout covers most of the middle lane of the road between Military Avenue and Marcus Street. A crew pouring concrete for the median’s curb worked north-to-south beginning Wednesday morning. It stopped short of where any repaving of the cutout would take place.

The curb will be set back about 18 inches from the outer edge of the cutout, so that more than the remaining asphalt will be available for driving once the median is complete, Rainer added.