New Hope For I-65 Project-Sky Arnold
Twice a day one stretch of I-65 becomes a Williamson County mess.
The interstate drops from 8 lanes to either 6 or 4 in between highway 96 and 840.
"It's awful, what should take 15 or 20 minutes tops to get to work takes a minimum of 30 minutes and if it's rainy it's another 10 minutes," said Elaine Sage.
Sage says she often takes the back roads from her Thompson Station home to Cool Springs to avoid the traffic jam.
She says the frustrating thing is the problem only lasts for a few miles.
"As soon as you get past highway 96 there are no cars anywhere," said Sage.
Tennessee has a $100 million dollar plan to fix it but the State is waiting for federal money to arrive.
"Without the federal funding coming in for congress which is very restrictive right now...without transportation bill we're kind of waiting to see what congress will do," said TDOT's Joe Carpenter.
Carpenter says projects across the State have stalled, because Congress has yet to approve the Federal Highway Bill.
It will pay about 80% of the cost of the project in Williamson County.
That plan gained some important support Monday morning.
John Mica, the ranking Republican on the House Transportation Committee, joined Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn for a tour of the area.
Both say they support it.
"One of the things we have seen an agreement on for citizens in this area is that fixing that traffic on I-65 is a pretty high priority," said Blackburn. New Hope For I-65 Project-Sky Arnold
Posted: Monday, November 2 2009, 08:11 PM CST
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