Transportation road summit gives west Alabama leaders preview of what road projects are coming

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (WBRC) - A big transportation road summit was held Tuesday in Tuscaloosa. The Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama held the annual event at the Tuscaloosa River Market where a handful of major road projects were on the drawing board.

There is no doubt the one that’s grabbing the headlines is the Woolsey Finnel Bridge. You may recall this is the bridge former U.S. Senator Richard Shelby secured a $100 million to replace.

Those who attended the luncheon presentation included citizens and representatives from local governments in Tuscaloosa County. The daily traffic count in the area is around 55,000 so the bridge replacement is a big deal, according to officials.

The bridge will be 8 lanes, four in each direction.

“I intend to show them the conceptual design,” said ALDOT Region Engineer Wallace McAdory. “The project is still under design. We’ll share some of the conceptual artistic renderings of the project, talk about some of the sequence of construction and how we’ll manage construction during the project. We estimate to let the project sometime next summer. We’ll have actually 8 lanes, four lanes in each direction but will maintain two lanes in each direction during construction.”

The two other road projects on the board Wallace McAdory talked about included improving the U.S. 43 and 82 intersection in Northport and exit 100 off I-59 in Tuscaloosa County.

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