NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Five months after Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed his flagship legislation into law, the $3.3 billion Transportation Modernization Act is moving forward.
By Oct 1, the TMA Board will be seated, according a spokesperson from the Tennessee Dept. of Transportation. The Board will make determinations such as initial pricing for drivers to use so-called choice lanes, the toll lanes that will be the most visible part of the plan.
Board members will be chosen by the Governor, legislative leaders and TDOT.
And TDOT staff are currently studying which corridors across the state to recommend building choice lanes. They will run alongside normal lanes of traffic, and drivers can access them with a fee. Transit operators like buses will be allowed to use the lanes free of charge, TDOT says.
Answering one major question drivers have been asking, TDOT Commissioner Butch Eley says the choice lanes will all be new construction, and no current lanes will be converted to their purpose.
"We're talking about additional capacity," Eley said. "Like if our general purpose lanes today were three, we would continue with three general purpose lanes. We're talking about with the choice lanes would all be additional capacity that would help get people where they’re going."
During the legislative session, the Governor's administration argued the lanes are needed to address an expected 60 percent increase in commute times in the next 20 years.
Eley says many rural areas with two-lane highways could see an additional lane to help capacity, with the plan evenly dividing state money between TDOT's four major regions, for $750 million each.
"We know that we've got a lot of old interstates that only have two lanes and that’s the way they were built back in the 70s," Eley said, "so we're looking at doing a project in each of those four areas to expand our suburban and rural interstate system to three lanes or more as necessary."
Critics have pointed out that means heavily-populated Middle Tennessee gets the least money per-capita.
But when asked, the commissioner mentioned local areas of interest.
"We've got wide right-of-ways if you think about it from here (Nashville) to Murfreesboro or here to Franklin, there's still a lot of room in many of our locations," he said. "And when you think about even downtown you can build up (over the current roadway). So there's a way to engineer a solution to be able to do these choice lanes just as other states have."
The Transportation Modernization Act also includes an increase in yearly fees for electric vehicle users, as more people make the switch away from gas and forego the state tax that gas generates. It also paves the way for private-public-partnerships to change how infrastructure projects are built.
And it allowed for workforce changes, using open positions to increase salaries for transportation employees.
TDOT will present its full choice lane plan December 1st.
