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Highway 99 - Start Date Uncertain
By Glenda Dyer
The proposed 4.6-mile segment of Highway 99 from Concord to Eagleville is in the state’s current funding plan but a construction start date for the project is still not certain.
Highway officials are awaiting receipt of wetland water quality permits before taking bids for the project, according to a Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) spokesperson.
"We don’t schedule a bid letting for any project until we have all the permits to begin construction," B.J. Doughty, TDOT community relations officer, said. "As far as we know it will be full steam ahead once these permits are issued."
TDOT has been working with the various agencies on the wetlands issue for about a year now and hopes to have the necessary permits by the end of the year, Charles Graves, a member of the transportation department’s project planning division, said.
Construction of the 4.6-mile segment will take about two summers, Graves said. He estimates the cost to build such a road could amount to about $3 million a mile.
The proposed roadway will follow the existing Highway 99 alignment from the Concord area to about Swamp Road with some curves being straightened out along the way.
The road will turn south near Swamp Road on a totally new roadbed and will run across the fields and pass Eagleville School on the south side. The new section will tie into U.S. 41-A just south of Holt Specialty Equipment Co.
Bradford Huebner, a developer from Toledo, Ohio, owns the land on both sides of the new road section between Swamp Road and 41-A, according to the 2001 TDOT right of way map.
The old Highway 99 into downtown Eagleville will remain the same and a ramp will be built west of Swamp Road to tie the new section into the current road.
The proposed road will have two 12-foot lanes and eight-foot shoulders with 6 feet of the shoulders being paved. Turning lanes will be provided at Swamp Road, Claxton Road, Mount Vernon Road, North Lane, Mount Pleasant Road and Ditch Lane, according to Joe Carpenter, TDOT design manager.
All the right of way has been bought for the new roadwork which amounted to 57 different tracts that totaled 28.13 acres, Graves said. The total right of way costs, including the land, relocations, appraisals and other items, came to almost $2 million.
The right of way acquisition involved seven residential relocations and no businesses.
The roadwork will affect about 4.23 acres of wetlands that are located in six different areas and vary in size from .145 to 2.27 acres, Graves said. The wetland areas are mostly adjacent to the part of the road that follows the existing route.
"These areas accumulate water and have the plants that are associated with wetlands and we have to address them as such," Graves said.
The Harpeth Wetland Mitigation Bank contains enough acreage available for the state to use to replace the wetlands the highway project is taking, Graves said.
"We probably have to replace that on a 2 to 1 ratio," he said. This means two acres of wetlands would be needed for each acre disturbed.
The agencies involved in determining the wetland and the replacement areas include the Tennessee Department of Conservation and Environment, U.S. Wildlife Office, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, Environmental Protection Agency and the Corps of Engineers.
"They have to determine what ratio and the degree of replacement we have to do," Graves said.
The Highway 99 upgrade from Murfreesboro to Eagleville has been in the works for about 14 or 15 years. The part from Murfreesboro to Concord was completed about a decade ago.
In the early planning phases a couple of alternate routes were discussed, including following the current highway path into downtown Eagleville. But the closeness of the school and homes along the road as it approaches Eagleville caused dilemmas.
The amount of work needed to address turn lanes, signals and capacity problems at the 99/41-A intersection "would just about wear out the downtown area," Graves said.
"There is on the street parking there through the business section, and all that would just be a terrible situation for the business owners," he said.
The other option discussed was to build the new section of the road to come out on U.S. 41-A near where west Highway 99 that goes to Chapel Hill intersects 41-A. But as a result of community planning meetings, the current plan was decided to be the one that would best serve the community, Graves said.