What are the most important road concerns in Huntsville? (Birmingham: construction, school)

[Hamtonfordbury]

Huntsville has a few major road concerns right now. Which ones would you consider the most important?

Within the city, I think the biggest concerns are the lack of a beltway and a bottleneck on the tiny Parkway with only two real lanes going each way. The Arsenal, nature preserves and the mountains will make any beltway a hassle to build, but I think some more dilapidated areas like old Airport and Braham Spring could be utilized to build a third major north-south route.

That is within the city. I think Huntsville needs to focus on connecting to other cities more, and repairing the damages done by the Interstate system's near total omission of a 200K city and 500K metro. Huntsville's connections on the west side are adequate. It is easy to get to Decatur and Athens, and even Florence, Corinth and Memphis. The routes to Nashville are fairly direct, but it would be good to have a freeway to get there. Birmingham is easy to get to from the North and west side of town, but South side residents need to go through backroads or up to 565 to get over to I-65. I would be nice to have a major route directly to Birmingham. It is possible to get to Atlanta if you are creative in route planning, but forget about a freeway or even 4-lane highway that will get you there directly.

If I had total power to change Huntsville's roads tomorrow, here's what I would build:

- A limited access beltway around town, through the arsenal, and around Green and Monte Sano Mountains. (already planned, but never seems to get off the drawing board)
- A 3rd major north-south route west of the Parkway, preferably limited access
- An alternate freeway to I-65, splitting near Hartselle, going through town, and joining again with I-65 near Ardmore.
- A major east-west highway (not necessarily limited access), which connects Atlanta to Huntsville. My ideal route would be to recycle Highway 72, branch off at Scottsboro, and go through Ft. Payne and Rome, GA on the way.

This is how my plan would look in Google Maps. I highlighted trouble spots, and existing roads. Red lines are standard 4-lane highways, and blue lines are interstate-grade freeways.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer...Y.klVUBL0sK5Bo

[NoleFanHSV]

Capshaw, Jeff road, elevate portions of the parkway, 4 lane research all the way to the parkway.

I disagree about east west traffic. 72 and 20 are terrible. If they'd 4 lane capshaw, that would significantly improve Huntsville to Madison traffic.

Huntsville has always been cut off by the arsenal, so if South huntsville residents need to go west. Of course they weren't thinking about that 40 or 50 years ago when the arsenal was built.

The problem with 72 east is simply that there isn't enough traffic to warrant making it an interstate. When 59 was built they probably didn't think about Huntsville and Huntsville probably was tiny back then.

[FTG-05]

Little trivia for the day:

When I-565 construction was started, Huntsville was the largest city in the continental US not connected to the US Interstate system. Don't recall where I read that, but I thought it was pretty interesting.

[Tourian]

Maybe they will one day finish a partial beltline around most of the city but i doubt the arsenal will ever allow such a road to cut through or come significantly close enough to complete a proper ring road.

Maybe 565 can be extended to the east to connect to 59 or 24. But i doubt there will ever be another interstate built to connect to any of the other cities you mentioned.

[Lamar Bowman]

Originally Posted by NoleFanHSV

Capshaw, Jeff road, elevate portions of the parkway, 4 lane research all the way to the parkway.

I disagree about east west traffic. 72 and 20 are terrible. If they'd 4 lane capshaw, that would significantly improve Huntsville to Madison traffic.

Huntsville has always been cut off by the arsenal, so if South huntsville residents need to go west. Of course they weren't thinking about that 40 or 50 years ago when the arsenal was built.

The problem with 72 east is simply that there isn't enough traffic to warrant making it an interstate. When 59 was built they probably didn't think about Huntsville and Huntsville probably was tiny back then.

I am all aboard on the Capshaw idea. I dread when school is back in, as it has been a pleasant morning commute lately.

[NoleFanHSV]

Originally Posted by Lamar Bowman

I am all aboard on the Capshaw idea. I dread when school is back in, as it has been a pleasant morning commute lately.

We were close to moving out to rail road bed road just in limestone county, but it took 45 minutes to go 11 miles at 7am in the morning.

[Lamar Bowman]

Originally Posted by NoleFanHSV

We were close to moving out to rail road bed road just in limestone county, but it took 45 minutes to go 11 miles at 7am in the morning.

It is annoying. All it takes is that one guy to drive 5 mph lower than the posted limit and it becomes gridlock.

[Huntsville_secede]

Originally Posted by Hamtonfordbury

Huntsville has a few major road concerns right now. Which ones would you consider the most important?

Within the city, I think the biggest concerns are the lack of a beltway and a bottleneck on the tiny Parkway with only two real lanes going each way. The Arsenal, nature preserves and the mountains will make any beltway a hassle to build, but I think some more dilapidated areas like old Airport and Braham Spring could be utilized to build a third major north-south route.

That is within the city. I think Huntsville needs to focus on connecting to other cities more, and repairing the damages done by the Interstate system's near total omission of a 200K city and 500K metro. Huntsville's connections on the west side are adequate. It is easy to get to Decatur and Athens, and even Florence, Corinth and Memphis. The routes to Nashville are fairly direct, but it would be good to have a freeway to get there. Birmingham is easy to get to from the North and west side of town, but South side residents need to go through backroads or up to 565 to get over to I-65. I would be nice to have a major route directly to Birmingham. It is possible to get to Atlanta if you are creative in route planning, but forget about a freeway or even 4-lane highway that will get you there directly.

If I had total power to change Huntsville's roads tomorrow, here's what I would build:

- A limited access beltway around town, through the arsenal, and around Green and Monte Sano Mountains. (already planned, but never seems to get off the drawing board)
- A 3rd major north-south route west of the Parkway, preferably limited access
- An alternate freeway to I-65, splitting near Hartselle, going through town, and joining again with I-65 near Ardmore.
- A major east-west highway (not necessarily limited access), which connects Atlanta to Huntsville. My ideal route would be to recycle Highway 72, branch off at Scottsboro, and go through Ft. Payne and Rome, GA on the way.

This is how my plan would look in Google Maps. I highlighted trouble spots, and existing roads. Red lines are standard 4-lane highways, and blue lines are interstate-grade freeways.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer...Y.klVUBL0sK5Bo

You must be bored lol, good luck getting funding for all of this, we can't even get Highway 72 widened. There isn't enough to maintain the roads we have much less build entire express-ways through multiple cities because it would make Huntsville more connected. Read the Huntsville 2035-2040 transportation plan in the links I provided below. That's the best place you will see a documented plan for long term road improvements in the area that will most likely never be completed. I haven't looked at it in a while but the Northern Bypass and Southern Bypass satisfies your requirement for a limited access beltway around town. The southern bypass was put on hold or cancelled by the federal government due to security concerns of it crossing the arsenal. The Northern bypass is being done in phases, but the limited access portion of that will be completed so far in the future it pretty much seems like fantasy right now. There is definitely a need for a east-west expressway that goes through Northern Alabama. Unfortunately due to political and other reasons it will probably never be done. The Memphis to Atlanta highway through Huntsville would have satisfied the need to create a major east-west highway (most of it's route was through US 72 and then SE toward the Southern bypass connecting to I-75 near Catersville, GA). That project is also pretty much dead now as well especially since I-22 is nearing completion.

Year 2040 Transportation Plan | Huntsville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization

The 2035 Long-Range Transportation Plan | Huntsville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization

Death of a dream: the Memphis-Huntsville-Atlanta freeway (editorial) | AL.com

[dijkstra]

The only way much of anything is going to happen is if we do it ourselves locally. ALDOT is pretty much useless up here but they don't mind taking our tax revenue.

The belt/ring around Huntsville cutting through the arsenal is dead. The security changes after 9/11 pretty much killed any hopes of ever getting that section through the arsenal.

There does need to be Interstate access to the East. Getting to Atlanta from this area is a real pain. No matter how you go it is either out of the way or stop and go traffic through small towns until you finally make it to an Interstate.

[MisterEd51]

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