Winding, rock slide-prone U.S. Highway 64 is one step closer to being bypassed, but it may be more than a decade before any construction begins.
On Wednesday, the Tennessee Department of Transportation released a report detailing 10 alternate routes to U.S. 64. The project, dubbed Corridor K, is one of the final legs in a massive state and federally funded highway project meant to link Appalachia with the East Coast.
“This is the best push we’ve seen. If we can’t make it this time, we won’t be able to do it,” said Wes Hughen, the TDOT manager in charge of the project. “They’ve never had the legislative willpower behind it like they do now and the people from the community and Southeast Tennessee supporting them like they do now.”
The 10 alternate routes were developed by TDOT officials and 15 community members. The options range from doing nothing to constructing an entirely new $1.2 billion four-lane highway that runs north of Little Frog Mountain. Middle-of-the-road options carry price tags of about $300 million and use a mix of new and old roads.
All plans call for keeping U.S. 64 open as a scenic route while constructing a highway with higher capacity for commuters and truckers.
“Right now, the mountains form a wall to commerce,” said Denny Mobbs, a Polk County attorney and a member of the 15-person community advisory panel.
In November 2009, U.S. 64 was closed for seven months when a massive rock slide blocked the road. While the route is a scenic shortcut to the North Carolina mountains, it is also the primary route from eastern Polk County to Cleveland and Chattanooga.
The push for a new road reached a fever pitch after the slide. A community meeting in December, which was organized by TDOT just to discuss the rock slide, turned into angry protest from community members dissatisfied that, after years of discussion, no road has been built.
Now that the options for U.S. 64 alternatives have been delivered to state officials, a multi-year, four-step evaluation process has been initiated, Mr. Hughen said. TDOT will begin asking for input on the options almost immediately, but Mr. Hughen estimated that the state won’t select a final plan until the winter of 2012.
After that, construction could start only when funding is made available, he said, and it could take up to four years for the project to go to the bidding process.
Even though the latest plans provide some timeline, Mr. Mobbs estimated that many Polk residents won’t be happy with a 10-year timetable.
“I think a majority of the people in Polk County, hearing the time constraints, won’t be satisfied with the timeline,” he said. “Corridor K was first discussed in 1965 as one of 35 corridors in 13 Appalachian states.”
Adam Crisp covers education issues for the Times Free Press. He joined the paper's staff in 2007 and initially covered crime, public safety, courts and general assignment topics. Prior to Chattanooga, Crisp was a crime reporter at the Savannah Morning News and has been a reporter and editor at community newspapers in southeast Georgia. In college, he led his student paper to a first-place general excellence award from the Georgia College Press Association. He earned ...
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