Highway bill paves more than roads in Tennessee
Two years in the making, the bill passed by Congress a little more than a week ago contains roughly $4.7 billion for Tennessee projects over the next six years.
There are major projects such as $100 million to build Interstate 69 in West Tennessee and $17.5 million for another bridge in the long-planned Foothills Parkway in the Great Smoky Mountains — the oldest unfinished public works project in Tennessee.
There also are scores of lesser undertakings getting “high priority” for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s home state.
“I guess it has expanded over the years,” U.S. Rep. John “Jimmy” Duncan, a Knoxville Republican and ranking member of the House Transportation Committee, said of the congressional wish list in these massive road bills.
“There are bike trails and what they call ‘streetscape improvements’ that are sidewalks and things for people to get around easier not in vehicles,” Duncan noted, just to give an example. “But it is all transportation related.”
So there are new bus stations for Knoxville and Nashville, “force protection barriers” for Fort Campbell, and visitors centers for Murfreesboro, Meigs County and the prehistoric fossil site in Gray that was discovered while digging a road.
And while at least eight communities get rail crossing improvements, more than 20 communities were included with more than $25 million in greenspace projects for joggers and cyclists, including $7.2 million for Murfreesboro and $6.4 million for Columbia.
There is even $3.3 million to repair cobblestones along Memphis’ riverwalk.
“You know I feel like all of these are really legitimate, really good things,” said Duncan, who has been named among the five most fiscally conservative members of Congress by the National Taxpayers Union.
The University of Tennessee-Knoxville would get $20 million for a Joint Institute for Advanced Materials to be shared with Oak Ridge National Laboratory — about half of what the institute is expected to cost.
“It comes through transportation because the center has a clear mission for transportation,” said UT-Knoxville Chancellor Loren Crabtree. “It will deal with nanotechnology research related particularly to safety issues and new materials that can be used in a variety of transportation modes — from automobiles through aircraft.”
The Knoxville-based National Transportation Research Center, championed by Duncan, also is in line for $8 million in research funding that Crabtree said would be used to create a UT-Oak Ridge Lab center for excellence in transportation.
Meanwhile, the University of Memphis would receive $5 million for a Center for Advanced Intermodal Transportation Technologies, as well as a $3 million pedestrian bridge.
Bob Miller, spokesman for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, wasn’t sure which bridge would be built with the $17.5 million in the bill for the Foothills Parkway.
Construction recently began on the third of 10 bridges needed to cross 1 1/2-mile Caylor Pass near Walland to complete a so-called “missing link” between completed sections that would add about 16 miles to the western end of the parkway.
The parkway was conceived in the 1920s, authorized by Congress in 1944 and finally begun in 1960. But only 22 of its 72 miles have been completed because of funding delays and construction setbacks.
Miller said the $17.5 million in the highway bill would be enough to pay for the next bridge in line or the last two bridges on the other side of Caylor Pass.
While another $86 million will be required to finish the crossing, he said, “It is progress, and we are glad to see it.”
Sen. Lamar Alexander’s hometown of Maryville and his mountain home near Townsend both benefit from the bill. The measure includes $8 million toward a proposed $50 million community arts and visitors center at Maryville College and $1.7 million toward a Great Smoky Mountain Heritage Highway Cultural and Visitors Center in Townsend, which is now under construction.
“I understand how people may look at that and say, ‘Well, they are getting more than their share,'” said Herb Handly, executive vice president of tourism at the Smoky Mountain Convention & Visitors Bureau.
“But you really have to look at it as individual projects and what the overall impact would be. And each one of those projects would have a tremendous impact, not only to the community but to people who come and visit,” he said.
Major Tennessee projects in the federal highway bill
—Interstate 69 design, right of way and construction. $111.3 million. (Another $50 million dedicated for the I-69 project will be divided between Tennessee and five other states.)
—University of Tennessee Joint Institute for Advanced Materials in Knoxville. $20 million.
—Construction of the Foothills Parkway in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. $17.5 million.
—Engineer, design and construction of connector road from Interstate 75 interchange across Enterprise South Industrial Park to Highway 58 in Hamilton County. $17.2 million.
—Metropolitan Transit Authority-Nashville downtown transit transfer facility. $12 million.
—Tennessee Department of Transportation statewide transit and bus replacement project. $12 million.
—North Second Street corridor upgrade, Memphis. $10 million.
—Construct State Route 1 (US-70) to a four-lane divided highway on new alignment from Centertown to McMinnville in Warren County. $9.2 million.
—Knoxville, Tennessee-Central Station transit center. $8,527,200.
—Improve existing two-lane highway to a four-lane road along the US-412 Corridor west of Natchez Trace to US-43 at Mt. Pleasant. $8 million.
—University of Tennessee, Knoxville, National Transportation Research Center. $8 million.
—Plan and construct a bicycle and pedestrian trail including enhancements, Murfreesboro. $7.2 million.
—Widen State Route 62 in Knox County. $6.5 million.
—Widen and improve State Route 33, Knox County. $6.5 million.
—Construct transportation enhancements on a multifaceted greenway in downtown Columbia on the Duck River. $6.4 million.
—Widen State Route 101 in Cumberland County from two-lane highway to five lanes between state routes 282 (Dunbar Road) and 392 in Crossville. $6.4 million.
—Street improvements, streetscape features, signals and signage along Third Avenue North and Union Street in downtown Nashville. $6 million.
—Improvements to the Blount/Sevier corridor in Knoxville to support the South Waterfront Redevelopment project. $6 million.
Source: Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan group that monitors government spending and opposes what it considers to be wasteful.
http://www.taxpayer.net