State transportation officials find themselves in a bind.
The sheer numbers of vehicles on Nashville’s interstate system has surged in the past decade as more and more residents flock to Middle Tennessee. We recently reported that the worst spike in volume is occurring on Interstate 24 down into Rutherford County, but the increases are by no means confined to just one interstate.
Historically, widening the highways was the default to addressing more traffic volume. That’s no longer palatable, Toks Omishakin, assistant commissioner for the Tennessee Department of Transportation and chief of environment and planning, told me.
“We’ve reached the point where we know we can’t build ourselves out of our traffic woes,” Omishakin said. “The old solution of wider roads isn’t enough to get us beyond the challenges we have.”
“Bigger roads just attract more cars and more volume,” he added. “Before you know it, you’re back to square one again. If we say, ‘Let’s widen every roadway and bypass,’ we’ll end up in the same place [we are today], especially with the growth rates that are projected.”
Widening projects are also expensive, especially at a time when federal funding uncertainty has created a backlog of billions in existing projects in TDOT’s pipeline. (continue reading at Nashville Business Journal)