Tag: TDOT

Categories
News News Blog

Lamar to Get $300M Upgrade

CREDIT: Google Maps

Google Maps

Lamar close to Holmes Road.

Lamar Avenue is set for projects totaling $300 million from the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) to help ease traffic on the congested road.

State and local officials are slated to announce the details of the projects in a news conference Tuesday afternoon.

But TDOT said Monday that Lamar will be widened from four lanes to six from the border of Tennessee and Mississippi to the six-lane section at Getwell. Also, three interchanges will be will be upgraded to interchanges.

The following are set to speak at tomorrow’s news conference: TDOT Commissioner John Schroer, Sen. Mark Norris, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell, Greater Memphis Chamber president Phil Ternary.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Stand Up for Tennessee Infrastructure

CREDIT: Brandon Dill

Brandon Dill

It wasn’t that long ago that Governor Bill Haslam and his transportation commissioner, John Schroer, were in Memphis as part of a statewide tour to pitch what had to have been the softest soft-sell of all time. Here, as

elsewhere in Tennessee, the two state officials met with local business, civic, and political leaders in an effort to dramatize a dire picture of infrastructure needs and the near-catastrophe that would confront the state if these needs could not be met in the near future.

That was in July. Haslam and Schroer made it clear then that the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) was looking at a $6 billion backlog of necessary highway and bridge construction — $150 million of which was needed here in Shelby County — and that there simply was no available revenue to build even a few dollars’ worth of it.

Not long before this tour, there had been some preliminary talk in administration circles of asking the legislature for a modest gasoline tax to finance some of the most drastic needs, but that idea was shortly deep-sixed by the usual suspects — i.e., those mossbacks in the General Assembly who evidently think infrastructure repairs get made by themselves at no cost to anybody.

After the debacle suffered by the administration in failing to get the legislature to approve Insure Tennessee, a Medicaid-expansion package that would actually have brought some $1.4 billion in federal funding to Tennessee, the governor evidently hadn’t the heart for asking the state’s smug solons to pass a tax to pay for something.

The idea of that earlier tour was to go around the state to describe in the most dramatic terms how unsustainable the state’s infrastructure situation would become unless some new funding could be found. But no request was made for any specific form of revenue at any of the local stops made by Haslam and Schroer. What the administration evidently hoped for was that distressed locals would petition the state for a new highway tax without anybody in state government having to ask for it. Needless to say, in the three months since there have been no such petitions presented.

Schroer was back in Memphis on Tuesday, telling a luncheon meeting of the Rotary Club of Memphis that the state’s infrastructure situation was unsustainable under current funding circumstances. Things had meanwhile been made even worse by the impact of a reduction, late in this year’s legislation session, of the portion of state transportation tax that FedEx had been paying.

Things were so bad, Schroer said, that “we can’t survive with everybody in Tennessee driving their car to work.”

Why not ask for a state gasoline tax then? Or at least open a dialogue about it?

“That would be ill-advised,” Schroer said.

Really? What is ill-advised is the state bumbling on toward a future of infrastructure shut-downs and break-downs without specifying a remedy for the funding shortage and making a case for it.

Even toddlers know that the Tooth Fairy doesn’t leave anything under the pillow without getting some sort of signal from somebody.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Roundabout to a Dead End

Last Friday, the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) announced that it would delay its planned closure of the I-55 “Old Bridge” over the Mississippi River for at least a year while it conducted “further studies” on the economic impact of the project.

“Over the past several weeks, we have heard from residents, business owners, elected officials, and other stakeholders in Memphis and in Arkansas, and we understand there is a significant level of concern over a full closure of the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge,” TDOT Commissioner John Schroer said. “We want to take the opportunity to address those concerns before moving forward with construction.” In other words, back to the drawing board.

I don’t want to say there were a couple high-fives given in the Flyer office, but we were pretty pleased that our efforts to raise civic consciousness on this ill-advised plan bore some fruit. Reporter Toby Sells covered the project extensively, and we vigorously editorialized against it. The Commercial Appeal, on the other hand, editorialized in support of the closure project and ran a couple of soft, pro-TDOT articles.

Mayor A C Wharton was also seemingly clueless about the project’s potential to devastate the local economy, offering tepid, boilerplate support for TDOT’s bridge closure plan.

Whoever the next mayor is, whether it’s Wharton or one of the candidates running against him, it’s essential that he get actively involved in helping to ensure that this TDOT project has as small a negative impact as possible on our tourism business, our transportation and distribution industry, and the booming Bass Pro Pyramid. Memphis business and political leaders need to be proactive and not let Nashville bureaucrats determine our future. They need to join with officials on the Arkansas side — who should get most of the credit for stopping the closure plan — and begin working with TDOT to craft the least painful alternative.

To that end, easy access to downtown (and Bass Pro) via northbound I-55 to Riverside is critical. That means the proposed “roundabout” also has to be off the table. Replacing a free-flowing four-lane entrance to (and exit from) the city with an intersection that forces all north-south traffic to interact with Crump Boulevard traffic heading onto and off the bridge is not progress.

But for now, we’re content to enjoy a victorious first step — stopping what TDOT officials said less than a month ago was the absolute “final plan.” No further changes were possible, they said. In response to which, I’m happy to quote Arkansas state Senator Keith Ingram, who said, prophetically: “TDOT probably didn’t think the Overton Park expressway was going to be stopped, either.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

TDOT Delays I-55 Bridge Project

CREDIT: Brandon Dill

Turns out, we can drive I-55, at least for another year.

Last week the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) hit pause on a plan to build a new interchange for Interstate-55 at E. H. Crump and Riverside. That $60 million plan would have closed the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge for nine months, beginning in 2017.

Opposition to the bridge closure mounted quickly after news of the plan broke in the Flyer in late May. By the beginning of July, TDOT Commissioner John Schroer remained resolute in his decision to implement the plan. When asked if anything would change his mind, Schroer told the Flyer that, “It’s not a case of changing my mind. It’s about making the right decisions, and, in this case, we made the right decisions.”

Brandon Dill

Less than a month later, TDOT announced it would idle the project for one year as it studied the project’s impact on the regional economy and the communities surrounding the proposed construction.

TDOT will take the year to compare two plans. One is the plan on the table, with a three-year construction period and a nine-month closure of the bridge. The other has a six-year construction period and would close only some traffic lanes across the bridge, but there would be no full closure.

“Over the past several weeks, we have heard from residents, business owners, elected officials, and other stakeholders in Memphis and in Arkansas, and we understand there is a significant level of concern over a full closure of the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge,” Schroer said in a news release Friday. “We want to take the opportunity to address those concerns before moving forward with construction.”

The loudest, most formal opposition to the plan came from Arkansas state Senator Keith Ingram of West Memphis. Ingram launched a petition at change.org to fight the bridge closure, saying it would “devastate” local economies and “cripple” emergency services.

Ingram said he and a group of state and local officials had a “good and meaningful” meeting with Schroer two weeks ago. He said delaying the project is a “good first step” in the process to build a new interchange.

“I think sometimes, and I’m not saying it’s the case here, but sometimes in Little Rock, or Nashville, or Jackson, Mississippi, it’s easy to make some of these decisions until you really see first-hand and understand the daily disruption and the regional impact that closing this bridge would have for all of us,” Ingram said.

The Greater Memphis Chamber also opposed closing the bridge, fearing the move could have a multi-billion-dollar negative effect on the regional economy.

“We appreciate TDOT’s leadership on this issue and support their plan to delay the project for a year to complete additional analysis of the impact and to work with Arkansas and regional businesses on any alternatives to a complete closure of the bridge during construction,” said Dexter Muller, the Chamber’s senior advisor.

The plan delay was good news for West Memphian Jim Russell. He’s retired and travels to Memphis for medical visits and to volunteer at the Memphis Botanic Garden.

“I was planning on not going to Memphis at all anymore, except for some doctors’ appointments I couldn’t change,” Russell said. “I was going to cut out the Botanic Gardens completely, but now I won’t have to do that.”

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

A Bridge Beyond

The Tennessee Department of Transportation announced last week that the I-55 “old bridge” across the Mississippi would be closed for nine months, beginning in 2017, so that the department could build new exit and entrance ramps. This is a really horrible idea, with potentially disastrous economic, public safety, and even national security ramifications. West Memphis is already really upset about the plan. In Memphis, not so much, not yet, anyway.

This must change, people. Attention must be paid to this.

During the nine months TDOT is planning to close the bridge (and we know all highway projects are always finished on time), all north/south traffic on I-55 and all east/west traffic on I-40 will be funneled across the the Hernando DeSoto “M Bridge.”

Using TDOT’s 2013 AADT (Annual Average Daily Traffic) numbers, the I-55 bridge is traversed by 55,829 vehicles a day. The I-40 M Bridge is crossed by 55,630 vehicles a day. So, the plan, if you can call it that, will double the number of vehicles crossing the M Bridge every day. In addition, I-240, which runs through the center of the city, will become the main conduit for I-55 traffic to get to and from the M Bridge. The current AADT number for I-240 is 97,292 vehicles a day, much of it local and commuter. Let’s add another 55,000 vehicles, many of them 18-wheelers, to that number, shall we? Good times.

But here’s the real crux of the matter: Closing the I-55 bridge is not a decision that should be made by a Tennessee state agency with a vested interest in new construction projects. This project affects three states and two vital national interstates. An earthquake, a barge accident, or God forbid, a terrorist attack on the M bridge, and the transportation system for the central U.S. would melt down. To cross the Mississippi River, you’d have to funnel hundreds of thousands of vehicles to Dyersburg or Helena, Arkansas, a night-marish scenario. (Not to mention the difficulty of getting over to Pancho’s for happy hour and cheese dip.)

Even if there is no major disaster, Memphians will be royally screwed by this plan. You think commuting from Southaven or Cordova or Collierville is a pain now? A big wreck on the M bridge, and you may be sitting on the outer loop til lunchtime.

In St. Louis, the only other centrally located major city on the Mississippi, there are eight bridges across the river. You shut one down, it’s not the end of the world. You shut down the I-55 bridge and the Mid-South will be down to one way to cross the Mississippi. That’s a recipe for disaster.

If there were only one bridge now and it needed a new ramp, do you think TDOT might have figured out a way to keep it open during construction? I do. Our elected officials — local, state, and federal — in all three affected states need to get ahead of this ill-considered project before it’s too late.

In 1971, Memphis activists and their lawyers stopped the federal government from building I-40 through Midtown. The combined political will of the Mid-South ought to be able to stop a state bureaucracy from this foolishness.

Not to be melodramatic or anything, but if the I-55 bridge is closed, the terrorists win. And we lose.

Categories
News The Fly-By

“Old Bridge” Closure Could Pinch Memphis

CREDIT: Courtesy TDOT

Predictions of the consequences from the planned, nine-months closure of the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge range from inconvenient to nightmarish, but a Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) official said there was simply no other way.

Speculation and worry followed last week’s announcement that TDOT plans to close the bridge while it builds a new interchange at I-55 and E.H. Crump. A public meeting about the project was held in West Memphis Monday. Another meeting is scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday at Memphis Area Transit Authority Central Station. 

The project will cost close to $35 million and will replace the current cloverleaf design of the interchange, which TDOT calls “outdated,” claiming it poses safety and efficiency concerns. The new design will feature a roundabout to connect I-55 traffic to downtown Memphis and curved ramps to allow I-55 thru traffic to continue on and off the bridge without slowing down.

Courtesy TDOT

An artists rendering of the proposed new interchange at I-55 and Crump.

The three-year construction project won’t begin until spring 2016 and the planned closure of the bridge won’t begin until spring 2017, said B.J. Doughty, TDOT communications director. 

“We do not take this lightly; this is a major undertaking for us, as well,” Doughty said. “If there had been any other way … we would choose not to shut it down. We realize this is an enormous inconvenience for people.”

The long curved ramps to I-55 will be built over the roundabout, where the cloverleaf is now, Doughty said. To make way for big bridge pieces like beams and piers, there will be no place for traffic to pass, she said.

During construction, all I-55 traffic will have to be routed across the Hernando DeSoto M Bridge, and that has people worried.

Manny Belen, deputy engineer for the city of Memphis, said his office has expressed to TDOT that the project needs to be sensitive to the impact on businesses, commuters, downtown residents, freight movement, and emergency responders. 

“Additionally, we’ve expressed concerns about the impact of the planned detour through the Midtown section of I-240 and the inevitable traffic congestion,” Belen said. “The response from TDOT is that this nine-months closure is the most prudent direction and the least impactful.”

Congressman Steve Cohen said he does not support the planned closure and believes the construction can be accomplished without closing the bridge. At a minimum, he said, any closure period should be expedited.

Paul Morris, president of the Downtown Memphis Commission, called the planned closure “painful,” but its results will dramatically improve the approach to downtown Memphis and reconnect the French Fort neighborhood to downtown.

“I certainly wish there were a way for them to do the work without closing the bridge, which is going to be very bad for downtown and West Memphis,” Morris said. “This is little comfort, but we will have the Big River Crossing over the Harahan open by the time of the closure, meaning that it will be easier to bike rather than drive across the Mississippi River.”

If the bridge is closed as TDOT plans, I-55 traffic would be diverted to I-240 through Midtown, up to I-40 and across the Hernando DeSoto Bridge. Doughty said TDOT plans to work closely with local law enforcement and emergency services to keep traffic running efficiently in case of an accident.

Doughty said TDOT closed a section of I-40 close to downtown Knoxville in 2008, and the project went “incredibly smoothly.”

Categories
News News Blog

Federal Highway Trust Fund Shortfall Slows Local Road Projects

Southbound traffic on I-55 near Crump Boulevard

  • TDOT
  • Southbound traffic on I-55 near Crump Boulevard

Two Shelby County highway projects — improvements to the Crump interchange on I-55 and improvements to State Route-4 from the Mississippi state line to south of Shelby Drive — have been delayed to fiscal year 2016. Both Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) projects were originally scheduled for delivery in fiscal year 2015.

Revenues in the federal highway trust fund have fallen short of the expenditures authorized by the U.S. Congress. And that has caused the TDOT to have to delay highway projects across the state. TDOT has been transferring some general funds to support projects, but a letter from TDOT Commissioner John C. Schroer to the Tennessee General Assembly calls that practice “not sustainable.”

Twelve state projects ready for construction totaling $177 million and 21 projects ready for right-of-way acquisition totaling $217 million have been shifted to fiscal year 2016.

“While these projects are only delayed and not cancelled, they represent almost $400 million in transportation investments and could be helping to modernize our transportation network and reducing congestion and making Tennessee a more attractive destination for economic expansion,” reads Schroer’s letter.

TDOT has said the Crump interchange on I-55 is “structurally deficient, out of date, and creates multiple safety and efficiency problems.”

Categories
News News Blog

Sam Cooper Boulevard To Close for the Next Two Weekends

Westbound weekend traffic along Sam Cooper will be detoured this weekend and next as the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) installs steel girders over an existing traffic lane. The work is part of the overall construction project for the I-40/I-240 interchange improvement project.

Sam Cooper will be closed from Saturday, October 25th at 5:00 a.m. through Sunday, October 26th, 2014 at 8:00 p.m. and again from Saturday, November 1st at 5:00 a.m. through Sunday, November 2nd, 2014 at 8:00 p.m.

During both weekends, westbound Sam Cooper Boulevard will be closed. Traffic taking Sam Cooper Boulevard westbound into the city will be detoured along westbound I-40 to the Covington Pike interchange and then back along eastbound I-40 to exit 12B, where traffic will rejoin Sam Cooper Boulevard. Westbound I-40 traffic will be encouraged to use SR 385 as an alternate route. Detour maps and information will be provided on the TDOT web site.

Sam Cooper detour map

  • Sam Cooper detour map