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Staff: I‑40/I‑75 PEL study preliminarily favors widening and choice lanes; funding and local impacts remain uncertain
Summary
TPO staff said preliminary results of the I‑40/I‑75 corridor PEL study narrow alternatives toward interstate widening and choice lanes but noted costs could reach $1 billion+ and funding is uncertain. Members raised concerns about economic impacts, local access and mitigation during long construction windows.
TPO staff updated the committee on the I‑40/I‑75 corridor Planning and Environmental Linkages (PEL) study and said the study team narrowed alternatives to a short list including interstate widening and choice lanes.
Staff said public meetings and a two-stage screening narrowed options and that preliminary recommendations at the public meetings leaned toward interstate widening and choice lanes, but that the final PEL report (expected in the fall) will include follow-up analysis for FHWA and kick off NEPA. Staff warned the committee that funding is a major open question: "it could be $1,000,000,000 dollars or more," a staff member said, and stressed the potential for such a project to displace or delay other programmed investments if funding must be reallocated.
Committee members pressed staff on whether economic-development impacts were included; Anderson County’s Catherine Baldwin asked, "Was economic development of the areas that the bypass would positively impact considered in the studies?" Staff said economic effects were considered but that traffic benefits for a bypass did not meet the threshold for congestion reduction in the corridor analysis. Members also raised localized congestion and access issues—such as southbound access from Old Oak Ridge Highway to Pellissippi Parkway—and urged planners to consider smaller, near-term mitigation projects to ease impacts during any long construction phase.
