BENTON, Tenn. - Even as the boulders are being cleared from U.S. Highway 64, the November 2009 rock slide and a new administrative process are pushing Corridor K into the public spotlight.
First proposed in 1965 by the Appalachian Region Commission, Corridor K follows an eastern route from Interstate 75 at Exit 20 in Bradley County along U.S. 64 and U.S. 74 to near Asheville, N.C.
Cost estimates to complete Corridor K in the Ocoee area range from $300 million to $1.3 billion, depending on the route.
Gerald Nicely, state commissioner of transportation, said no decision has been made on Corridor K's route.
"We can't - until the environmental process is completed - actually name a corridor," Mr. Nicely said last week at a news conference. "But I think we are close to narrowing it down to some realistic options, given the input we will be receiving."
At the conference, he announced that the planned reopening of U.S. 64 had been pushed back from March 31 to April 16.
A group of county and city officials, as well as local residents, is preparing a report on Corridor K that examines the economic needs of the region as well as environmental concerns and a long list of other issues. The report, to be given to Mr. Nicely, also will launch an environmental study expected to be completed by 2012.
Most local governments have endorsed the Corridor K concept, if not a specific route through the gorge, as an economic necessity for the region.
But some opponents are urging caution. Reliance resident Tom Darden said if huge amounts of federal money are going to be spent anyway, then the current scenic route should be improved.
At public hearings in February, more than 500 people came to look at the maps and register opinions with the Tennessee Department of Transportation.
Last week, Polk County Mayor Mike Stinnett said that creating the Rural Transportation Organizations four years ago brought Corridor K back from the dead.
The RTOs were created in 2006 by TDOT to give rural counties an opportunity to plan transportation needs just like metropolitan areas do with their similar MPOs, or metropolitan planning organizations. There are twelve multi-county RTOs across the state.
"The RTO process has worked," Mr. Stinnett said. "I think Corridor K was dead on arrival until the RTO process started."
In Southeast Tennessee, Bledsoe, Bradley, Grundy, McMinn, Marion, Meigs, Polk, Rhea and Sequatchie counties are part of the Rural Transportation Organization. Corridor K has remained the region RTO's top priority.
The Nov. 10 rock slide on U.S. 64 in the Ocoee River Gorge closed Polk County's major east-west link between Benton and Copperhill. In the months since, several smaller rock slides have occurred along the highway.
Those slides have added further emphasis to the importance of Corridor K, Mr. Nicely said last week when he toured the gorge's work sites.
Local agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service and TVA that have a stake in the gorge, along with a Citizens Resource Team of people who live and work in the area, have identified nine potential routes for Corridor K around and through the gorge. Among those options is making improvements to U.S. 64 but not building Corridor K.
TDOT officials said last week that some of that improvement work to U.S. 64 has been planned for years, but the fragile geology of the gorge delayed the effort until the rock slide.