Almost exactly 11 months after Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) officials announced the widening of Interstate 24 around Moccasin Bend would start in 2024, state officials said the same corridor is being considered for a privately built and operated toll lane.
Up to now, we’ve been fairly neutral on what Gov. Bill Lee calls “choice lanes,” wanting to know more details about how they might work before offering praise or criticism. Certainly we’ve appreciated the state’s “pay as you go” approach to date, where roads are built as they are paid for. That helps keep the state out of debt and is similar to the way responsible people operate their homes.
The “choice lanes” (giving drivers the choice whether to use slower interstate lanes or pay a toll to presumably escape clogged sections of roadways) were part of a $15 billion, 10-year roads plan in the governor’s Transportation Modernization Act passed by the legislature earlier this year.
In January, TDOT officials said the widening of I-24 around Moccasin Bend was in the preliminary engineering phase and would be the first of three projects that would add lanes on I-24 between the intersection with I-59 in Georgia and the I-24 junction with U.S. Highway 27 near downtown Chattanooga.
Officials at the time said the project around the river “presents unique design challenges because of the geographical location [between the railroad tracks hugging Lookout Mountain and the Tennessee River].”