TDOT Alters Plans for Proposed Highway 56 Project

Several years after first announcing plans to widen and improve Highway 56, the Tennessee Department of Transportation has a new proposal that is expected to save the state money.
Instead of building a four lane divided and five lane road from south of the Warren County line (in Warren County) to near Magness Road in DeKalb County, TDOT now proposes to build a new two lane road (typical section) with twelve foot lanes and ten foot paved shoulders and passing lanes along the 3.30 mile existing alignment. The plans also include adding extra safety features on the new road, such as guardrails, better road signage, pavement markings, and center line rumble stripes. The total projected cost is $7,611,000. That would be a savings to the state of $12,800,000 from TDOT’s original plans for this portion of Highway 56, which would have cost $20,411,000.
The highway from near Magness Road to just south of the Warren County line is currently a two lane road with eleven to twelve foot lanes and two to eleven foot shoulder widths.
According to TDOT officials, the rate of severe crashes on this portion of Highway 56 is (0.250) double the state average (0.128) for rural two lane routes but that the decision to scale back the project was out of financial necessity.
“Because of our tenuous and unpredictable financial situation relating to the federally funded Highway Trust Fund, the department took a look at our projects in development that would not have received funding any time soon to see if there was something we could do instead that would address some of the transportation issues in a less expensive, but more easily and quickly funded manner,” Jennifer Flynn, TDOT Regional Community Relations Officer recently told the Southern Standard.
The process to make some improvements rather than risk nothing being done is called expedited project delivery and focuses on safety measures. “In the case of this project, our planners came up with recommendations that would include safety improvements to the corridor at an estimated $857,000 and reconstruction of the roadway with two lanes and a total of 1.5 miles of passing lanes at a cost estimate of $6.754 million for a total estimate cost of $7.611 million,” said Flynn.
The smaller project has not yet received funding approval for construction but could be let for bids by the fall of 2015.
TDOT has not yet announced a timetable for construction of the proposed project to four lane Highway 56 from Magness Road to the city limits of Smithville.