{"id":244432,"date":"2026-03-31T03:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/244432\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:41:09","slug":"long-beach-mayor-proposes-new-road-project-aimed-at-easier-access-to-interstate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/244432\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach mayor proposes new road project aimed at easier access to interstate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">LONG BEACH, Miss. (WLOX) \u2014 Mayor Tim Pierce is taking another look at a major road project with a new plan and a deadline to use millions in federal funding.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The revamped plan follows the collapse of the Beatline Road parkway plan, which stalled amid funding shortfalls and a lack of county support.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wlox.com\/2021\/11\/16\/168m-federal-grants-headed-long-beach-road-improvements\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wlox.com\/2021\/11\/16\/168m-federal-grants-headed-long-beach-road-improvements\/\">Long Beach gets $16.8M to start expanding Beatline Rd. to five-lane parkway<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe stepped back and said, \u2018Is this the true route that we really want to take, or can we take a regional approach to this and include others that may benefit from this regional plan as well?\u2019\u201d Pierce said.<\/p>\n<p>New route proposed<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Pierce is pitching a new route from the Long Beach Harbor north through Cleveland Avenue and Klondyke Road to 28th Street. It would connect to I-10 by a plan to either widen Canal Road or build a new connection.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"The plan layout for the North-South Corridor Project.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CGALPAGBQFFE3GTOOOIE4RJ2IA.jpg\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>The plan layout for the North-South Corridor Project.(WLOX)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The mayor is working to win Gulfport\u2019s support, saying the new route would give Port of Gulfport and Seabee Base workers another direct link to I-10 and speed up storm evacuations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cIf we don\u2019t find a way to build a safer corridor to I-10 and open up more businesses in our city, we\u2019re gonna be strangled, you know, going forward,\u201d Pierce said. \u201cWe have to open up avenues for development.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Funding deadline looms<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Long Beach has $16.8 million in federal funding on the table, but it expires in September 2027. The state still has to sign off.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThat\u2019s just what the state was asking; come up with good plans, good master plans and we\u2019ll help you fund it, so that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing,\u201d Pierce said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Pierce says the proposal is about more than traffic flow. He says it\u2019s about economic development and whether the city can do it without taking on a big financial hit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI\u2019m really hoping this white paper shows that it\u2019s not going to be a big burden on Long Beach, but yet opening up our area to get down to Highway 90 will open up all that available land that we have along Highway 90 and hopefully bring future business into our city,\u201d Pierce said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Gulf Regional Planning Commission is expected to invest $150,000 towards the project proposal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">A work session to discuss the project will be held at Long Beach City Hall on Tuesday, March 31, at 5 p.m. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">See a spelling or grammar error in this story? Report it to our team <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wlox.com\/page\/error-report\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\">HERE<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WLOX. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONG BEACH, Miss. (WLOX) \u2014 Mayor Tim Pierce is taking another look at a major road project with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[109499,109500,131,133,132,109498,109501,5534],"class_list":{"0":"post-244432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-federal-funding-deadline","9":"tag-i-10-connector","10":"tag-long-beach","11":"tag-long-beach-headlines","12":"tag-long-beach-news","13":"tag-long-beach-road-project","14":"tag-mississippi-infrastructure","15":"tag-tim-pierce"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}