Looks like someone is hearing the cha-ching sound of change dropping into a toll bucket.

So, who stands to make money by owning property at the proposed exchanges? Exchanges = gas stations, fast food, etc.

Who stands to make money off the construction and management of the toll plazas?

Are the green and orange routes serving true transportation needs or just the pocket books of the landowners, construction companies, and however toll plaza management works?

Why are we not doing something smarter like creating transportation hubs and distribution centers where trucks are loaded onto trains with routes built along pre-existing corridors? Freight should be sent by train to distribution centers for the majority of its travel then from the distribution center to destination by truck.

Doug McCaughan
(link...)

They're small, but Burkhart out at Forks of the River handles Rail, Truck, and even Barge transfers. They can also facilitate cross docking.

... but it's political leaders who make the decisions.

You can confirm that by looking at all the plans that get ignored when development and road-building decisions are made.

In addition to state legislators, contact your local political leaders too: county commissioners and mayors.

The folks impacted by the Orange Route have been fighting this for 11 and a half years. We tried to tell everyone that it was part of a grand plan to circumvent the county. Nobody listened. It is a little late for others to wake up now because it is about as done as deal as it can be. While the east county side has been silent, TDOT, the Roadbuilders, the Chamber Partnership, big money interests, and the TPO have been gleefully selling out the public. Grab your ankles because it will be coming your way soon. Welcome to the he## that the Hardin Valley folks have been living. We've been contacting the officials and representatives for years. Hasn't stopped it yet. And where were you guys at the toll road meeting last night?

... and we are getting mighty tired of it. The Hardin Valley folks are the ones that have been fighting and everyone else has been sitting on the sidelines. There has been press and meetings about it for years and years, so I don't know why you haven't heard about it before. See the info on the nobeltway web site. The Orange Route was been "selected" several years ago, and the dotted line for leg #2 was changed immediately to a solid line.

Fortunately, we've been able to slow it down and the costs have been rising. But TDOT's idea now is to bypass Federal dollars (NEPA would no longer apply, how convenient!) and get toll dollars to pay for it. In fact, the leg #1 is to help pay for leg #2 and #3.

840 has been slowed down because of funding issues (Federal dollars are drying up) and also very costly lawsuits. TDOT has more money (our money) than we do for lawyers, BTW. I don't know about you, but most people are trying to pay for mortgages, gas, groceries, etc.

The orange route was supposed to cost $237 million when it was selected as the approved route. After psotponing it's start for 11 1/2 years, the cost is now ~$1 BILLION dollars. This road was supposed to be completed in 2005. We now have the unique opportunity to look at the numbers that they used to justify this project. The numbers for the projected traffic count in 2005 with the beltway completed and diverting traffic from I40/75 more than the traffic count that the TPO did in 2007 and no beltway has been built. The numbers are so far off it is laughable and no body that can so something about the bogus numbers seem to even care.

The numbers used for the justification of the beltway were supplied to TDOT by the Knoxville Chamber Partnership and their transportation committee headed by Wes Stowers. Yea, the one that owns Stowers Equipment company and is on the Board for Directors of the Tennessee Road Builders Association. Is there something rotten about that or what? Now the head of the Chambers transportation committee that is really pushing this project now, is the owner of Tennessee Asphalt. Wonder what they use asphalt for in massive quantities??? Oh, by the way, the Partnership that is pushing this road down all of our throats gets $400,000 form the taxpayers of Knox County thanks to Ragsdales budget. Other groups get nothing and the Chamber Partnership gets $400,000. What a deal. Think that the taxpayers are getting their money's worth??
Oh yea, TDOT on their map doesn't call your leg of the parkway "proposed" any more. It's coming so you better get with the program and write your legislators and put pressure on them to fight TDOT and their tolling scheme. If they don't stop TDOT in the Legislature, you will get the road and TDOT will put tolls on everything they do from now on. And people don't seem to understand or care. Get going and fighting, you have a lot of catching up to do and not much time

Well, everyone get off your comfortable couches, put down the beer (beer tax goes to TDOT's road fund, BTW), and start the letter campaign. Demand that there be NO TOLL ROADS IN TENNESSEE!!!!!!!!

If they get toll roads, this beltway will be wrapping around the county (per the map) because TDOT will get the money to do it all. Got the concept????

Comments are due 21 days from 7-18-08

Project Description: Statewide Tolling Meeting - Knoxville

Tennessee Department of Transportation
Project Comments
505 Deaderick Street
Suite 700, James K. Polk Building
Nashville, TN 37243-0332

e-mail address: TDOT.comments@state.tn.us

I've just spent a few minutes staring at the proposed map to figure out who or why the green route would be used.

I am not going to use it. I have a hard time understanding why a trucker would pay to take a longer route around the city rather than going straight through for free. The it dawned on me that the map appears to represent population density as well. Am I wrong? The map shows where business and housing has formed densely around I-40 and I-75. Look at 441, 129 and 61. Now look at the proposed route. It basically bisects the population density between Knoxville and Oak Ridge and skirts the eastern edge of the population density of Knoxville.

Who will use this? Ah! The people who move into the sprawl that is destined to develop around the interchanges and the route itself. The green route is a symbiote! Without the road would that sprawl happen? And without that sprawl, are we missing economic development opportunity? We want Knoxville to resemble Los Angeles or Dallas don't we?

Doug McCaughan
(link...)

Thanks for the great post and the excellent comments!

Just imagine the quality of great light rail that could built for the 9 county region using that kind of money. This route, as is typical for much road construction, reinforces my belief that the "population density" argument is bogus. Population density follows transportation construction rather than leading it. In other words, for light rail, if we build it, they will come. Some rezoning around rail stations to allow high density residences and small commercial properties would be the only catalyst necessary once the station locations were known.

We've got to get our heads out of the past and look to a future where transportation changes dramatically. The current system of trucks, giant highways, sprawl, and fossil fuel consumption is unsustainable! It's time to build the future today, no excuses.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Hunter S. Thompson

Total miles driven in the US leveled off two years ago and it's started dropping (and faster in Tennessee than in the country as a whole). We don't need any more roads.