Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) commissioner Gerald Nicely feels SmartFIX40 is going as well as can be expected. He says the project’s success can be attributed to everyone in the region and he offered his appreciation to the Knoxville community and to those in attendance at a recent Premier Partner breakfast.
“TDOT wouldn’t have been able to get this project off to the great start it’s off to without the support we’ve received from city of Knoxville officials, Knox County officials, the Knoxville business community, and local citizens,” he said.
Commissioner Nicely credited the organization’s community and outreach team for its extensive public awareness campaign that helped educate citizens about impending changes.
“In order for projects as large as these to be successful, you have to have a major public outreach program in place,” said Nicely. “Quite frankly, I think people in this area are sick of hearing about the changes.”
But that’s good. It means that the public is well aware of the project and how to travel to and through downtown Knoxville.
Bell and Associates Construction, L.P., sponsored the breakfast. Bell is overseeing the reconstruction project, the largest project in the state’s history.
“One of our main objectives when we began looking into construction companies to complete the project was making sure we had a construction team capable of doing the job,” Nicely said. “I think Bell and Associates very well may finish ahead of schedule due to the extensive preliminary work completed.”
The SmartFIX40 project, with its shutdown of two and a half miles of interstate 40 in downtown Knoxville, is expected to save two to three years of construction compared to traditional projects. The entire project entails road improvements to Hall of Fame Drive and I-40, the reconfiguring of James White Parkway, the addition of new interchanges and exit ramps, and the widening of I-40 from four lanes to six.
In addition to updating members of the Chamber on reconstruction efforts, Nicely addressed state allocated funds for TDOT that have been cut $237.7 million since December 2005. Stagnating state revenues and increasing costs, about three times revenue, are to blame. Nicely says TDOT will look into the use of toll roads throughout the state as potential remedies. The proposed “Orange Route” beltway that would connect interstate 75 (I-75) southwest of Knoxville with I-75 north of the city would be a candidate. Without a toll system the project would take 25 years to complete. Making it a toll road would allow for completion in seven to eight years.
“We are going to have to find new ways of financing our infrastructure, somehow, some way,” Nicely said. “There are 20,000 plus bridges in Tennessee that are continually aging. We are at work on studying options for alternative financing.”
Commissioner Nicely did report, however, the state is positioned better than most states because it is not in debt.
Mike Edwards, president and CEO of the Chamber, said that East Tennessee’s interstate system needs to be developed and maintained properly.
“It is very important that this region capitalizes on the fact that I-40, I-75, and I-81 converge here,” Edwards said at the event. “The interstates offer businesses the ability to conveniently ship goods and serve clients. There are cities and locations that would love to have a location similar to ours.”
To find out more about Premier Partner events, contact Michelle Kiely at 865.637.4550
Note: This release was sent from the Transportation Planning Organization. The Tennessee Department of Transportation's Environmental Bureau Chief Ed Cole recently spoke to members of the Knoxville Chamber about the proposed "Orange Route." You can read more about his visit here.
The Executive Board of the Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) will meet Wednesday, February 27, to consider a resolution requesting the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) to study the feasibility of constructing the Knoxville Regional Parkway or a longer bypass route as a toll facility.
The TPO Executive Board meets at 9 a.m. in the Small Assembly Room on the main floor of the City County Building in downtown Knoxville, and welcomes public input at all of its meetings. Members of the public who wish to address the TPO Executive Board are asked to sign up to speak when they arrive at the meeting.
The resolution to consider the Parkway or a longer Knoxville bypass as a toll facility, if approved, would be only an initial step in the process of one of these roads potentially being designated a toll road.
If approved, this resolution will be followed by additional study undertaken by TDOT of whether tolling is appropriate for the Parkway or the longer bypass route. After TDOT reports back to the TPO Executive Board with the results of that study, the Executive Board will decide whether to recommend one of these projects to the Tennessee General Assembly as a pilot toll road.
The Knoxville Regional Parkway, also known as the Orange Route or State Route 475, is a planned link between I-75 in Anderson County to I-40/I-75 in Loudon County, and is included in the TPO’s Long Range Transportation Plan. The longer bypass route would include the Parkway plus an eastern leg from I-75 north of Knoxville to I-40 east of Knoxville.
No definitive route has been selected for this eastern leg, and it has not been included in the Long Range Transportation Plan for the Knoxville region. The entire bypass route, including the Parkway and the eastern leg, was the subject of a conceptual tolling study completed by Wilbur Smith Associates for TDOT in 2007.
The results of that study are available at the TDOT website.
The Tennessee Tollway Act, approved by the Tennessee General Assembly in 2007, directed TDOT to study potential toll projects and to recommend two pilot toll projects by January of 2009. The Tollway Act prohibits the ownership of toll roads or bridges in Tennessee by private companies.
The voting members of the TPO Executive Board include the governor of the State of Tennessee; the mayors of Knox, Blount, Sevier and Loudon counties; the mayors of Knoxville, Farragut, Alcoa, Maryville and Lenoir City; the chair of the Knox County Commission; the vice mayor of Knoxville; and a representative of the East Tennessee Development District.
Ed Cole, Environmental Bureau Chief for the Tennessee Department of Transportation, recently suggested that the Knoxville Parkway could be the state’s first toll road. He also said that if the road were approved as a tollway it could be completed as much as a decade sooner than if the road was funded from Tennessee’s general fund.
The Knoxville Parkway – formerly known as the “Orange Route” – would connect I-40 near Watt Road with I-75 in northern Knox County. The Knoxville Chamber has been the project’s chief advocate.
Cole provided his update on the road during a presentation to the Knoxville Chamber. Organized by the organization’s Transportation Committee, the event was an opportunity to hear about the current status of the Knoxville Parkway project.
The General Assembly passed legislation authorizing toll roads during the 2007 legislative session. The law stipulates that the only one road and one bridge may be approved as a toll project per year, and that the Legislature would have to approve those projects. The projects must go through the stringent environmental and public approval process associated with highway construction. In addition, the toll project could not be a privately owned road.
The Knoxville Parkway is estimated to be a $600 million project and final approval for it is not expected until 2010. If it were financed traditionally, Cole did not expect completion until 2020 or 2022. If it were a toll road he said it might be finished by 2012 or 2014.
Cole said the need for this new highway construction financing mechanism is a result of lower levels of federal transportation funding and a softening of the state’s gas tax revenues.
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