TDOT 17-mile I-40/75 plan ‘greatest event ... since World’s Fair:’ Williams
Recognized by Tennessee Department of Transportation officials as “one of the most congested” Interstate cooridors in the Volunteer State, where the Campbell Station Road and Watt Road interchanges have gone longer without improvements than any similarly busy interchanges statewide, a 17-mile cooridor of Interstate 40/75, including both Farragut interchanges, now is getting immediate attention.
Having combined project improvements originally separate, with Campbell Station Road improvements not on the TDOT 10-Year Plan before being part of this “Conprehensive Strategy” 17-mile plan, Farragut Mayor Ron Williams expressed excitement during a press conference gathering of TDOT officials and state and local politicians at the 1-40/75 westbound TDOT weigh station, between the Town interchanges, Wednesday morning, April 3.
“I’ll start out by saying this project is by far the greatest event that’s happened in Tennessee since the World’s Fair (1982),” Williams said during his address. “... The Town of Farragut is looking forward to working with TDOT on the I-40/I-75 Corridor Study.”
Deputy Gov. Butch Eley, TDOT Commissioner, began the press conference by addressing the Comprehensive Strategy before giving way to Williams among local and state Knox County politicians.
TDOT “will invest in preliminary engineering to determine what corridor improvements need to be made during the next 18 to 24 months” in the 17-mile span, which extends where 1-40 an I-75 converge in Loudon County eastward to the I-640 split in Knoxville.
“By shifting focus from individual projects to a comprehensive strategy, we can better address long-term needs for this corridor and maximize the value of investments,” Eley said.
After the meeting, Eley said about costs, “We don’t have an actual dollar amount yet that we’re setting aside because we haven’t done this engineering studies or engineering planning. ... But it’s a several hundred million dollar project,” with “over $100 million that we already have together” for engineering.
The TDOT commissioner said completing the 17-mile project “is a several-years process. We haven’t gotten far enough into it yet to be able to put a strict timeline on it.”
