Last raised nearly 20 years ago
Chattanooga developer Jimmy White, whose project at The Bend has been approved for tax increment financing, revived a proposal to alleviate traffic problems that had its last moment in the sun nearly 20 years ago.
At a Rotary Club meeting earlier this week, he said a Chattanooga bypass is needed and is, in fact, long overdue. A route he mentioned would go through Lookout Mountain and connect with I-59.
The bypass to which White referred gained some notice from a regional transportation planning group in 2005. A tentative route would have had its southern terminus near Trenton on I-59. It then would proceed east through a tunnel in Lookout Mountain, through Walker, Catoosa and Whitfield counties in Georgia, then turn north to pass through Collegedale and then cross the Tennessee River to connect with U.S. Highway 27 near Soddy-Daisy. It would intersect with I-75 twice, once in Catoosa County and again in rural northeast Hamilton County.
The transportation group approved spending $1.5 million to study the possibility of the 65-mile bypass, but it is not clear whether the group ever set aside the money to do so.