I-565 additional lanes (Birmingham, Mobile, Huntsville: city hall, tax, price)

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by Satertek

Because nothing is really being widened. They're just shrinking the paved median and restriping lanes. To go any further (County Line - Wall Triana is all grass median) they would actually need to move some dirt and pave new lanes.

The highway really needs to be 8 lanes all the way to the airport (which is County Line Rd) anyway. Maybe they're just holding out for a real fix there. Doubtful.

[mcalumni01]

Originally Posted by RocketDawg

Correct ... I meant "outside the Huntsville/Decatur metro" ... basically the rest of the state other than north-central Alabama. An example ... how much is Birmingham/Jefferson county having to kick in on the $1-$2B "bridge replacement" that's going on now? I suspect very little to nothing.

You might be talking about the bridge in mobile at that cost. The replacement bridge in birmingham is $470M

[Big Grumpy]

Still can't fathom why ALDOT won't commit to extending the bridge decks for the 6-8 bridges that are in the section between Wall Triana and I-65. You know you're going to have to do it at some point and probably sooner rather than later. You bite the bullet now and remove that as an obstacle for any future widening plans. You don't devise a band-aid, short-term on the cheap solution when you have a company investing a billion dollars and creating 4000 jobs in the area. Especially when this is the major thoroughfare for folks getting to said investment.

I don't even know that this solution buys you much in the way of improvement considering that you've left a four-mile bottleneck between Wall-Triana and the County Line Road on-ramp where you have two additional ingress points. Plus, you've not made any infrastructure improvements that would support future widening efforts. If anything, they'll have made it more difficult to do the bridge widening the right way. How do you install temporary concrete barriers in an area where you have approximately 2' of clearance.

Further, this solution creates a bottleneck on the eastbound side at the County Line Road off-ramp where it will transition from three lanes back to two lanes. Commuters going to/from the Toyota/Mazda plant to/from Madison/Huntsville and points east will have to drive through four miles of congested roadway (with today's traffic) and only get the benefit of two miles of "widened" roadway.

ALDOT saying that they are "widening I-565" makes a good headline and a good sound bite, but as always the devil is in the details.

[Maya Blue]

Originally Posted by Big Grumpy

Still can't fathom why ALDOT won't commit to extending the bridge decks for the 6-8 bridges that are in the section between Wall Triana and I-65. You know you're going to have to do it at some point and probably sooner rather than later. You bite the bullet now and remove that as an obstacle for any future widening plans. You don't devise a band-aid, short-term on the cheap solution when you have a company investing a billion dollars and creating 4000 jobs in the area. Especially when this is the major thoroughfare for folks getting to said investment.

I don't even know that this solution buys you much in the way of improvement considering that you've left a four-mile bottleneck between Wall-Triana and the County Line Road on-ramp where you have two additional ingress points. Plus, you've not made any infrastructure improvements that would support future widening efforts. If anything, they'll have made it more difficult to do the bridge widening the right way. How do you install temporary concrete barriers in an area where you have approximately 2' of clearance.

Further, this solution creates a bottleneck on the eastbound side at the County Line Road off-ramp where it will transition from three lanes back to two lanes. Commuters going to/from the Toyota/Mazda plant to/from Madison/Huntsville and points east will have to drive through four miles of congested roadway (with today's traffic) and only get the benefit of two miles of "widened" roadway.

ALDOT saying that they are "widening I-565" makes a good headline and a good sound bite, but as always the devil is in the details.

Yep. It might be "cheaper" now for the wet band-aid, but it will be much more expensive waiting. Of course we won't see anything for another 15-20 years anyway.

[MisterEd51]

There is a lot of buzz on talk radio about the new toll road in south Alabama. We would have had improvements to I565 much sooner if it was proposed making it a toll road. Of course there would be a lot of unhappy people if that was ever brought up.

[Chris_NorthHSV]

Originally Posted by MisterEd51

There is a lot of buzz on talk radio about the new toll road in south Alabama. We would have had improvements to I565 much sooner if it was proposed making it a toll road. Of course there would be a lot of unhappy people if that was ever brought up.

This is something most growing cities of the future will have to look at. I've lived in Orlando and there's toll roads around there that make your commute easier when you want to use them. You can choose when you want to use them though. I look at Nashville's situation and believe that would help their situation....They need to be alternate roads though. The DOT doesn't need to just suddenly decide to designate sections of the interstate system as tolled. They are talking about charging $6 one way for that bridge down in Mobile. If it was $2 maybe, but even then I just cannot get over the feeling somebody (and probably more than a few) are trying to get rich from the situation. There's corruption in this state. Those who have lived in this state for a little while know we can't trust what we hear as the complete truth.

[Rick In Madison]

Originally Posted by Chris_NorthHSV

This is something most growing cities of the future will have to look at. I've lived in Orlando and there's toll roads around there that make your commute easier when you want to use them. You can choose when you want to use them though. I look at Nashville's situation and believe that would help their situation....They need to be alternate roads though. The DOT doesn't need to just suddenly decide to designate sections of the interstate system as tolled. They are talking about charging $6 one way for that bridge down in Mobile. If it was $2 maybe, but even then I just cannot get over the feeling somebody (and probably more than a few) are trying to get rich from the situation. There's corruption in this state. Those who have lived in this state for a little while know we can't trust what we hear as the complete truth.

Which state can you live in and trust what you hear?

I wonder how much money could be generated from those traveling I-565/Alt-72 over a ten year period versus the cost to expand the same segment to 6 to 8 lanes? Perhaps a Toll-by-Plate system.

Even after I-95 was completed, I still used the Fla. Turnpike when it was 'more convenient'.

[MisterEd51]

As Huntsville grows just adding more lanes to I565 may grow counterproductive.

I think Huntsville missed another opportunity years ago. They should have been forward thinking and planned for the Northern Bypass to someday extend all the way west to I65. At some point it could have turned into a limited access road like I565. That would have taken a burden off not only University Drive but also I565.

This just show that Huntsville has depended too long on too few major roads.

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by mcalumni01

You might be talking about the bridge in mobile at that cost. The replacement bridge in birmingham is $470M

From what I've read, the $470M is just the 20/59 part, the section they're doing now. It doesn't include the I-65 that was just completed, nor does it include the I-22 interchange that is new. I could, of course, be wrong, but that's what I gleaned from the al.com articles. The early completion incentives to the contractor alone are more than the 565 expansion that's to be started next year.

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by mcalumni01

You might be talking about the bridge in mobile at that cost. The replacement bridge in birmingham is $470M

Even if $470M is the real cost, is Birmingham/JeffCo having to chip in $235M as their share? I seriously doubt it. I was equating funding methodology, not hard numbers in that particular post.