Plans to widen and reshape Interstate 20 through Vicksburg and finish work to reopen U.S. 61 South at Signal Hill will come into sharper focus starting this week, as the Mississippi Department of Transportation considers details on both projects.

Engineering and planning officials will have a “kick-off meeting” Thursday to talk among themselves about what elements will go into the $150 million widening project, MDOT District 3 Engineer Kevin Magee said.

“Everything is on the table,” Magee said.

As of now, the makeover will cover 5.75 miles of roadway from the Interstate 20 bridge to just past Vicksburg city limits, Magee said.

A two-year environmental impact study began this month by Jackson geotechnical firm Neel-Shaffer Inc. and will take into account factors such as traffic counts, engineering challenges such as the cutting of hills and any historic sites.

Work will entail building additional lanes and some type of reworking of the frontage roads and interchanges along the way. Part of the work may involve turning traffic on North Frontage and South Frontage roads in one direction on each of them, an idea likely to affect businesses along each.

Short ramps off the interstate would access the frontage roads under such a scenario, MDOT officials have said. Overpasses such as the heavily traveled Indiana Avenue and Wisconsin Avenue ramps may face replacement. Left-hand exits and short-approach interchanges — the scene of numerous wrecks through the years — are expected to be brought up to modern-day design standards.

As for the interchange at Flowers, used mainly to access the Ceres Research and Industrial Interplex, widening it may be a separate project, Magee said.

Widening approach ramps there is likely to involve purchasing rights-of-way on the county-owned industrial park and eliminating the large spaces just off the road where large rigs are parked for extended periods.

As for the U.S. 61 South project, construction bids will be opened Oct. 23 for tearing up the buckled, former roadway and laying new asphalt. The northbound lanes where southbound traffic has been routed since April 2005 will also be resurfaced, Magee said.

Southbound lanes on the half-mile stretch just before Wigwam Road have been stabilized in a $5 million soil-anchoring project that buttressed the hillside below with a series of concrete blocks. Smaller, less expensive efforts had addressed the sliding problem on the highway for years prior to the 2005 closure. The decision was made to design a lasting repair and test it before resurfacing and reopening the southbound lanes.