Some are more controversial than others
by Barry Henderson
There may be no domestic issue, except rising gasoline prices, that raises the hackles of the public higher and quicker than whether, where, and how to build a highway.
So, some considerable measure of gratitude is due to Tennessee Transportation Commissioner Gerald Nicely for his successful effort to attain compromise on the realignment and expansion of Interstate 40 through downtown Knoxville. His responses to what was a rancorous debate over the I-40/James White Parkway/Hall of Fame Drive entanglement proved that he was listening. About a dozen changes from the former plan for the I-40 area of the downtown were incorporated in the new one released this week.
The result was a quieted throng, though there were still a few grumblings, mine included. On the whole, though, even I have to admit that the plan has been reasoned out pretty well. Concerns other than simple engineering issues were taken into account—those of the affected people, for example.
Consensus on a major highway project is unreachable. There will always be detractors of highways in general, for one thing. I can only continue to pray that the commercial traffic bound through Knoxville on I-40 will be left on I-640 after its “temporary” diversion there during the year the I-40 downtown leg will have to be closed for part of the widening and revamping construction. The throughway will be left at least partly open for the rest of the four-year project, commencing next spring if the federal government pops for its 80 percent share of the $160 million projected cost.
And alternative ways for local traffic to gain relatively easy access from I-40 to and from the heart of downtown will be paved first. That sounds logical, but it was not always a primary goal, leaving thousands of downtown workers and businesses anxious. Mayors Haslam and Ragsdale can take partial credit for the establishment of a downtown access priority.
When all is said and done, sometime before 2010 if all goes perfectly, this traffic-choked area of expressway will be better and safer than it is now, if only because the horrific James White Parkway interchange will finally be altered so that slow traffic is neither entering nor leaving the interstate in the passing lane. The addition of noise barriers along part of the new section can’t hurt either.
Get It Over With
It’s the promise that can’t be kept and won’t go away. It can’t even be brought back, although that’s what makes the most sense. All involved would be better off if Swain County, N.C., would abandon its claim on a road through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park alongside Fontana Lake in favor of a federal payoff.
The 60-year-old question of the North Shore Road should be settled now, without another round of hearings, without worrying about an environmental impact statement.
The environmental impact is clear enough. It’s a national park, for crying out loud, and it’s rugged land to boot, unsuited to road construction for less than a projected $150 million for the 23 miles that have not been built. Seven miles of completed road, with a dead end left to languor since the ’60s, should be busted up and the land returned to the park, but that won’t likely happen.
What will happen depends on the Swain County Commission, which has been offered a settlement of $52 million if it will let the road claim go. That’s nearly as much as Swain County’s worth, and it could be used to make a bigger difference in lives there than the road ever would. It would also save the federal government, meaning all the rest of us, more than $100 million in the long run.
Dale Ditmanson is the brand new superintendent of the park. If he would use whatever influence he brought along with him to settle the road issue once and for all, he’ll almost be a hero. If he can do that and help conclude the dispute over the future of the Elkmont Historic District within the park, with its tumbledown former Wonderland Hotel and its crumbling formerly private cabins, he’ll don the full mantle. It can go either way with Elkmont. Rebuild or remove, just so it’s decided and acted upon, and we’ll see to it that he gets a ticker tape parade down the Parkway in Pigeon Forge.
Better still, his wife’s a UT grad. I’ll bet we can get him introduced at Neyland Stadium at halftime. Good hunting, Superintendent Ditmanson. We’re behind you all the way, so long as you don’t contribute to any further delay in solving these seemingly ageless, apparently insoluble, park dilemmas.
March 11, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 11
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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