What's next for other area roads?

By Russ Corey & Trevor Stokes
Staff writers

Published: Sunday, August 19, 2007 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, August 19, 2007 at 12:08 a.m.

The widening of Alabama 157 is being hailed by Shoals leaders as a major achievement, but they quickly add the area's transportation needs do not end there.

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Several road projects remain critical to the Shoals if it is to sustain and enhance the growth it is experiencing, especially with the announcement that 4,200 jobs have been created in the Colbert-Lauderdale area since 2002.

Government and economic development officials seem to be singing from the same sheet of music when talking about future road needs. They include:

four-laning U.S. 43 from U.S. 72 at Killen to the Alabama-Tennessee state line. The road is viewed as essential to retail businesses in the Shoals that attract shoppers from southern Tennessee. The project would also give truckers four-lane access to points north and a quicker link to I-65 near Nashville.

The first leg of that project will begin in 2009, but the state Department of Transportation has pushed the remainder of the project to 2014.

completion of the Patton Island bridge corridor, which has been progressing slowly over the past 10 years. When completed, it will provide multilane access from the Florence-Lauderdale Industrial Park through Muscle Shoals to Alabama 157. Completion of this project has been pushed back to 2013, according to highway officials.

a controlled-access highway linking the Shoals to Mobile, a plan that has been discussed for decades with little progress. Environmental impact and engineering studies are being conducted on portions of the roadway.

extending I-565 from the I-65 exchange near Decatur to the Shoals. Legislators only recently began discussing the project, but it could eliminate the need of the Memphis-to-Atlanta superhighway that has been discussed for decades and would pass through the Shoals.

There's one problem - money.

There's not enough money in the state transportation department's budget to handle these or similar projects statewide. Road projects have to wait their turn. As seen with the Alabama 157 project, that can take quite awhile.

"Highway department funds are being depleted by the cost of construction," said state Sen. Bobby Denton, D-Muscle Shoals.

Muscle Shoals Mayor David Bradford called the completion of the four-lane Alabama 157 "huge for the entire area," but agreed efforts should now be concentrated on completing the Patton Island bridge corridor and widening U.S. 43 to the Alabama-Tennessee line.

"We need to look at things that are going to be completed within a 10-year period," Bradford said.

Then there are smaller projects, such as adding a third lane to U.S. 72 from the Indian Springs subdivision in Florence to the Shoal Creek bridge, and adding a fifth lane to Helton Drive from Hermitage Drive to Cox Creek Parkway in Florence. These projects, like others, have been pushed back because of reduced transportation money.

Jesse Turner, transportation planning director for the Northwest Alabama Council of Local Governments, said a link from the Shoals to I-65 is number one in terms of long-term projects being sought by government officials in the Shoals.

"That's what the leaders here are pushing," he said.

Transportation officials are developing a plan for a 14.5-mile interstate link from I-65 to Alabama 20, near Hillsboro. The price tag, however, is estimated at a whopping $550 million.

Bradford said that project would help the Shoals eliminate the stigma of not having immediate interstate access, which has been held against the area in industrial recruitment.

Russ Corey can be reached at 740-5738 or russ.corey@timesdaily.com.