Shoals-related road projects moving ahead

All three projects have been in the works for several years and will need heavy federal funding to continue on schedule.

Unless Congress shifts federal spending to hurricane relief, state transportation officials expect progress to continue on each.

The multibillion-dollar Memphis-to-Atlanta highway remains a federally funded project and is in the design stage, now that the route has been approved.

The Patton Island bridge began as a federally funded project. The project stalled until the state Department of Transportation began spending state money after state and federal officials figured out the right financing mix.

The bridge is open to traffic but a connecting interchange to just south of Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals is not complete. Construction on the second phase in Lauderdale County, which will connect Huntsville Road with Florence Boulevard at the Helton Drive intersection, hasn't started.

"Memphis to Atlanta will be completed,'' McInnes said last week. "That's sorely needed up there.''

U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Huntsville, said completing the Memphis-to-Atlanta highway is one of his priorities.

"I believe this and other projects, like the Patton Island bridge corridor in the Shoals, will go a long way toward increasing economic development opportunities in north Alabama,'' Cramer said. "The Alabama federal delegation has done an excellent job of bringing additional transportation dollars to the state each year and I will continue to work with my colleagues on projects of importance to north Alabama and throughout the state.''

McInnes said upgrading U.S. 43 from the Shoals to Mobile is getting under way in phases, with a stretch from Thomasville north to U.S. 80 going first.

McInnes said the Shoals won't have to compete with a recent $100 million appropriation in the new federal highway bill that is to be used to start design of the Interstate 85 extension from Montgomery to Mississippi.

"The Patton Island bridge extension is formula money and we got a contract on it,'' McInnes said. "Patton Island is going to happen regardless of any economic activity and plans are going through to put the interchange in.

"The same thing with U.S. 43, we've got to do those regardless of I-85, which came later,'' he said.

U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., included the $100 million for the I-85 extension in the recent highway bill. But that was before Hurricane Katrina demolished New Orleans and the Alabama and Mississippi coasts. Shelby has suggested a review of federal spending in favor of hurricane relief, including his own spending.

"These different earmarks are part of a large budget,'' said Shelby spokeswoman Virginia Davis. "Congress will have to make a decision.''

The prospect of a new automobile manufacturing plant on the Alabama-Mississippi state line is boosting highway development in Alabama's Black Belt, a neglected region starved for jobs.

The Department of Transportation is on a fast track to four-lane U.S. 80 between Demopolis to Mississippi, partly because of the possibility of a Kia automobile plant being built near Meridian, Miss.

"The Black Belt area needs infrastructure,'' McInnes said.

Dana Beyerle can be reached at (334) 264-6605 or dtb12345@netzero.com.