More than a dozen elected officials throughout western Alabama – from Mobile to Fayette – came together in Thomasville on Tuesday to voice their strong support for continuing construction of the West Alabama Highway.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey supports a plan to four-lane a highway through rural Alabama all the way from Mobile to Florence. Some state leaders and the media are widely criticizing that plan because prioritizing the four-lane highway through West Alabama means that other projects will likely have to be delayed.
The West Alabama four-lane highway has been discussed for decades. It would foster economic opportunities, particularly in counties without a four-lane highway or interstate access. It would add a new north-south route in the state, possibly taking some traffic off Interstate 65. The groundbreaking for the project was held on November 12, 2021, and attended by Gov. Ivey and area officials. Building the controversial West Alabama Highway will cost the state an estimated $760 million.
The West Alabama Highway will add lanes to U.S. 43 and State Route 69 to complete a four-lane corridor of roughly 80 miles.
Supporters at Tuesday’s event agreed the West Alabama Highway will open the region to economic development, jobs, safer commutes, and greater access to medical care and other necessities.
Sheldon Day is the Mayor of Thomasville.
“If we prepare ourselves today and do the right thing by working hard to make sure this happens, we will lift up the state of Alabama, this part of Alabama, higher than it’s ever seen before,” Mayor Day said. “The goals achieved and the things that can be achieved will be exponential.”
Sandy Stimpson is the Mayor of Mobile.
Stimpson said the West Alabama Highway is important to Mobile, especially as the Port of Mobile is expanding. Completing construction of the West Alabama Highway offers a new option — other than congested Interstate 65 — for goods being transported north from the port.
With the port expansion, “You can just visualize the increased commerce that we will have, and already we have traffic congestion on 65,” Stimpson said. “And, yes, there needs to be things done to improve 65. But it may the quickest and the least expensive thing to do is to fix 43 so that we have two routes coming out of Mobile for one of the biggest economic engines that we have for the entire state to be able to go north to connect to Tuscaloosa, I-22, on to Florence.”
Rod Northam is the Mayor of Fayette.
Mayor Northam attended the event and discussed the benefits of the four-lane highway connecting Mobile to Tuscaloosa and heading north toward his city and Florence. Another recently announced project – the West Central Alabama Highway – will connect Fayette to Interstate 22. Mayor Northam noted that because there is no four-lane highway through the western part of the state, many residents in north Alabama opt to travel through Mississippi to reach Alabama’s beaches.
“That’s tax dollars we’ve lost because they’re going to stop and get food, they’re going to stop and get gas, and they’re going to come down another state and not come down a corridor that connects, hopefully one day, the Shoals to Mobile,” said Mayor Northam.
Walt Maddox is the Mayor of Tuscaloosa.
Maddox called the West Alabama Highway “one of those win-win-wins. It’s good for Tuscaloosa, it’s good for the Black Belt, and it’s good for the entire state of Alabama.”
“So much of our commerce comes up from this region of the state, and what we want to do is export – especially on the automotive side – that back into Mobile,” Mayor Maddox said. “Not only automotive but coal as well, which is important to this region.”
Anyone who has traveled up and down Interstate 65 on a Friday afternoon during the summer knows that the interstate is in excess of its capacity and would benefit from widening. Former President Donald Trump even made an issue of the situation when he recently visited Montgomery, promising Republicans that a second Trump administration would prioritize making I-65 at least six lanes from the Tennessee state line to Mobile.
Lieutenant Governor Will Ainsworth has prioritized the I-65 widening. Everyone agrees that adding lanes to I-65 is something that the state should do. Gov. Ivey recently announced that I-65 would be widened between Alabaster and Calera in Shelby County at a cost of over $100 million.
Where Ainsworth has come into disagreement with Ivey is that building the West Alabama Highway will take ALDOT dollars that could be used on I-65, and borrowing the money to build Ivey’s West Alabama project would limit future road project funding for the state. If somehow Donald Trump avoids prison time, wins the GOP nomination, defeats incumbent President Joe Biden, and tries to honor his promise on I-65, the state will have maxed out its borrowing capacity building the West Alabama Highway and won’t be able to put up matching dollars for an I-65 widening project. A similar situation exists with the long-delayed Corridor X in Jefferson County. Any resources ALDOT spends there means that there are fewer resources available for widening I-65.
To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.
