After seven years of orange barrels, dump trucks and backups, the $328 million, two-phase project to rebuild the state-line interstate junction known for decades as the split is taking its final lap.
For all practical purposes, the Tennessee Department of Transportation’s Interstate 75/Interstate 24 interchange reconstruction project is finished.
Traffic shifted into the final alignment of the split’s new lanes at the beginning of March, and crews have been putting the final touches on the project since then, according to the state agency.
Concrete finishing and a few punch-list items remain, but as the state agency put it in a social media post, “Chattanooga, you’re officially driving on the glow-up.”
“Glow up,” for the less-than-hip and uninitiated, is a physical, mental and emotional transformation for the better, according to the Urban Dictionary. All those elements could potentially apply to the project and commuters following the seven-year wait for the improvements to be completed.