Tag: Tennessee Department of Transportation

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News News Blog

MATA to Expand Bus Service to Employment Centers, Improve Customer Service

Some of MATA’s CMAQ funds will go toward improvements at Central Station.

The Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) plans to use five grants totaling $4.7 million from the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) to expand bus service to employment centers and to improve customer experiences.

The funds were awarded through TDOT’s Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) program, which although administered by TDOT, is funded through the federal government.

Here’s how the money will be used:
* Public infrastructure improvements at Central Station, including a new trolley station, a transit connector concourse, and other pedestrian and bike-friendly streetscape improvements.

* A new bus route called the Wolfchase Connector that connect employers in the Appling Farms area and educational institutions such as Southwest Tennessee Community College with Shelby Farms and retailers in the Wolfchase Mall area

* A new express bus service connecting downtown with the American Way Transit Center, Greyhound intercity buses, and major employers near the airport.

* A new route called the Getwell Connector connecting multi-family residences and major employers in southeast Memphis.

* A new route called the Airport Shuttle Express that will provide direct express service between the Airways Transit Center, American Way Transit Center, and Memphis International Airport.

The CMAQ funds will cover 80 percent of the cost of these planned projects, while the other 20 percent (about $1.9 million) will be matched by the city of Memphis.

“These funds are a significant opportunity for us to get people in the inner city to jobs out east and around the airport area,” Mayor A C Wharton said. “It’s a good step in the right direction towards lowering the cost of living for the poor and providing access to greater opportunities for employment. I am pleased that MATA is doing what it can to expand services where they can have a major impact.”

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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.”

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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.

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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.”

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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.”

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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