The Tuesday meeting at the Batesville MDOT office had that deja-vu-all-over-again feel: Nice, poster-size maps lined the room showing routes, alternate routes and traffic counts. Nice people helpfully explained reasons for routes and counts.

The meeting’s purpose was to publicize a “Highway 49 Feasibility Study” that offers, among its highlights, road design changes and improvements to improve the east/west traffic flow between the Mississippi and Arkansas Deltas, connect I-55, I-69 and I-40 with an expedient through route.

By its projected completion date in 2040, the “Batesville-to Brinkley” corridor, as it has become known, is expected to siphon away a small amount of east/west traffic from Memphis’ I-40 and also provide an alternate Mississippi River crossing more distant from the New Madrid earthquake fault than the bridges between Memphis and West Memphis.

The meeting was never about the proposed Batesville bypass. And that was the problem. People in Batesville need information about what is happening with the bypass. Monday’s meeting was the first opportunity for an update that we have had in quite some time.

To review, since the 1980s, even longer, Batesville people interested in economic development,  local government and traffic officials have sought a solution to traffic congestion on Highway 6. There was a noticeable uptick in the traffic count following the completion of the Mississippi River bridge at Helena over 60 years ago.

Then in the 1980s, Highway 6 was expanded to four lanes between Batesville and Oxford, rendering that once narrow, hilly route much more safe for travel. But the four lanes ended then and now at Batesville, funneling four lanes of westbound traffic into two between the 6/278 intersection with Bates Street and its intersection with Eureka Street.

That funneling, coupled with exponential traffic increase that coincided with an economic growth that solidified Batesville’s position as a retail and employment hub for a 30-mile radius, often slows vehicle travel to a crawl. You’ve been there; you’ve done that.

When the growing realization during the 1990s of the need for east/west traffic relief in Batesville coincided with the explosive growth of the casino industry in Tunica County, Batesville’s need was placed on the back burner during massive highway construction to make access to casinos safer.

As the highway construction in Tunica was underway, MDOT held meetings in Batesville with poster-size maps showing three possible choices for east/west traffic improvement through and/or around the city and nice, helpful people to explain them.

The “and plan” was finally chosen, whereby a sweeping bypass would be constructed, looping far south almost to Courtland, and the existing route would be widened, including replacement of the 6/278 railway overpass at Whiskey Chute.

Then in 2005 Katrina stuck the Mississippi Gulf Coast, extensively damaging bridges and roadways far inland.

Again, Batesville was put on the back burner while federal and state resources were diverted to a more urgent need in another area of the state.

And then, as roadways and bridges were replaced and reopened on the coast, the economic downturn starting in 2008 drastically reduced funds that might have otherwise been available for the traffic improvements needed in Batesville.

Which brings us to where we are today: stuck in a limbo that too often brings Batesville Highway 6/278 traffic to near gridlock. Also in limbo are landowners along the proposed bypass route where preliminary engineering has begun but with further dates uncertain and uncommitted to by MDOT officials.

Owners of land, homes, businesses along the route are faced with decisions over whether needed improvements will become worthless overnight should the bypass project move ahead. Would-be sellers of the affected land find buyers reluctant when bypass plans are disclosed.

One way or another, the whole town — the entire south end of the county plus east/west travelers through town on 6/278 — have become hostage to the inertia.

That’s what we really wanted find out at Tuesday’s meeting: How much longer will we remain hostage to the inertia?