MOBILE, Alabama -- Traffic engineers this month will hold a pair of public meetings to get input on how best to fix chronic traffic snarls on Airport Boulevard.

Consultants with Volkert, an engineering consulting firm, have been drawing up ways to modify intersections along the notoriously congested thoroughfare in order to improve traffic flow, said Jennifer White, the city's traffic engineer.

Preliminary renderings of the designs are to be presented at the meetings, which will be held May 17 at Baker High School and May 19 at St. Pius X School. Both meetings begin at 5 p.m. and end at 7 p.m.

White said that the format will be informal with a number of stations set up so that people can come and go as they please.

Because the right of way on Airport Boulevard cannot easily be expanded to add lanes, she said, the engineers have been focusing on ways to rework the intersections, sometimes coming up with several alternatives for each one.

A few of the configurations on offer are likely to seem alien to Mobile drivers, she said.

One of them, called a single point interchange, would create an overpass over the intersection allowing through traffic to continue without stopping for a light.

Traffic engineers will take the input from the meetings into consideration when they narrow down the list of alternatives, White said. When the final alternatives are chosen, she said, they will hold another round of public-input meetings.

It could be years, however, until any of the intersections are reconfigured as the city will have to find a funding source, likely the federal government.

Federal road money is required to pass through the Mobile Metropolitan Planning Organization, which sets spending priorities in the area.