Posted on Tue, Apr. 29, 2008

-- We would like to heap nothing but praise on the Mississippi Department of Transportation for deciding to reconfigure the deadly intersection of Mississippi 67 and U.S. 49 and install a traffic light near Saucier Elementary School by year's end.

But when it comes to MDOT, the celebration is often bittersweet.

Again and again and again last year, we editorially pleaded with MDOT to do something to stop the carnage at 49 and 67. But other than express sympathy for the victims, MDOT seemed willing to do nothing.

Now we learn from Commissioner of Transportation Wayne Brown that MDOT has known for quite some time that something needed to be done at 49 and 67. "In fact," Brown said, a study "was done before the election, but we just didn't want to get it caught up in the campaign."

This concern about mixing politics and pavement is admirable, until you remember how much politics Brown injected into the opening of the new bridge between Biloxi and Ocean Springs just days before he was re-elected to a third term last fall.

As soon as MDOT officials confirmed what the public already suspected - that the intersection of 49 and 67 had become too dangerous - that information should have been shared with the public.

Instead, MDOT kept it a secret.

Why?