Well, well, ALDOT has finally finished the Interstate 59 construction in Etowah County. It took them two years, yes two years to reconstruct 10 miles of Interstate. Before the construction began, I-59 was in very poor shape. Just take a look at these photos.
Now, brand new concrete is in place and the drive is much smoother. I am just glad this Interstate is in better shape. It just should not have taken two years for the work to be done. Here are some pictures of the new roadway.
On Saturday I experienced some traffic trouble on Interstate 20 around the Brompton exit. While going to Birmingham on Saturday, before reaching the Brompton exit or Exit 147 on I-20, I got into the left lane and yes, a car had spinned out and hit the barrier wall. The driver of the wrecked car was smart to get out of the way and pull onto the right shoulder before another driver hit him. It was raining hard and the visibility was very poor. After doing the activities in the Birmingham Metro, I was driving back on I-20 and when I hit the Brompton exit, traffic came to a dead stop! I decided to ride on the right shoulder to exit and pulled over to get out of the car and take some pictures!
While I was on the Kelly Creek Road bridge taking some pictures. A police officer from one of the local cities, I forget which one, threatened to throw me in jail because I was roadgeeking. The last time I checked, walking along a public roadway is allowed and taking pictures of roads is not against the law. If there was not traffic backup because of yet another wreck at this stretch of I-20, I would not be there taking pictures. I don’t have a bad relationship with most police officers. The Alabama State Troopers and the county sheriff’s knows what me and other people do and roadgeeking is something they don’t have a problem with as long as we are not putting ourselves or other drivers in danger.
But I always have trouble with city police officers. I have already encountered some city police officers in a very bad way. One police officer from the city of Oxford threatened me about a year ago because I taking road pictures from my car and I was pulled over on the right shoulder. A police officer from the city of Anniston threatened me over a year ago because I was taking road pictures while standing on the side of the road. The last time I checked, I thought a road was public right-of-way?
It seems like I always have trouble with city police officers. And this officer from either Leeds or Moody threatened me with jail. You know something, if ALDOT would not have really bad standards about their highways, I would not be around taking pictures and talking about it! Speaking of ALDOT, why in the world would they shut down a critical detour route along U.S. 78 while construction is still going on along Interstate 20?
Interstate 20 from exit 147 to exit 156 in St. Clair County has been under construction for the last 10 years! And this stretch is prone to wrecks that blocks the interstate for hours at a time. U.S. 78 is closed from Cook Springs Road to the Chula Vista exit for a bridge replacement. Unless the bridge was about to collapse, this should have waited until the I-20 construction was finished!
I was at the bridge closure and caught this double tractor-trailer truck at the bridge closure. The driver took U.S. 78 to get around the blocked interstate and got stuck. Many car drivers also had to turn around at the bridge closure because they were trying to get around the blocked interstate. The truck driver had to take apart his double tractor-trailer truck and turn around! This is dangerous!
I guess ALDOT is wanting to anger the drivers even more to close down the detour route for when I-20 is blocked. There is hardly any signage for the closure, there are only two barricades saying road closed to thru traffic and some detour U.S. 78 signs. There needs to be better signage along I-20 to tell drivers that U.S. 78 is closed.
Most of the three-lane project along the eastbound lanes of I-20 are now complete. Here are some pictures. Yes, the road lines needs to be repainted!
My second ever Roadscapes video is now out! This video takes you on a tour of Jacksonville Alabama. In the video below, you will see the Jacksonville Public Square, Jacksonville State University, Chimney Peak, and the famous Tredegar Road tunnel. You will enjoy the video as I enjoyed making it. Watch it below!
The Alabama Department of Transportation always comes up with some wacky ideas for the roads in Alabama. A few weeks ago, I talked about the major traffic problems occurring due to the detoured Interstate 20 traffic merging into one lane at the I-459 interchange. I suggested they two-lane the ramp. And after major traffic problems, two weeks later ALDOT finally 2-laned the ramp. If ALDOT listened to the public and the Geek Alabama blog, they would have 2-laned the ramp before I-20 was closed. Here’s a post talking about it. http://geekalabama.com/2013/03/14/the-upcoming-interstate-20-repaving-project/
ALDOT now has plans to redo the Interstate 20 / Interstate 59 bridge through downtown Birmingham. The plans are to tear down the existing structure and replace it with a taller and wider bridge. The new bridge would eliminate the exit ramps into downtown Birmingham and new ramps would be constructed to connect all downtown traffic to 11th Avenue North. While the bridge is being torn down and re-built. The interstate would be closed down with all through traffic having to take I-459 or taking downtown city streets. Before the bridges are replaced, 11th Avenue North would be re-constructed into a 5-lane road for Interstate traffic to reach downtown. Here is the project plan.
Here is the project description from ALDOT:
“The project as proposed will be constructed in two phases. The first phase will construct the 11th Avenue North corridor improvements and ramp connections to I-59/20 and to I-65. The 11th Avenue North corridor will be used by local traffic accessing the CBD [Central Business District] during the second construction phase and on into the future.
“The second phase will be to replace the bridges on I-59/20 through the CBD. The bridge decks will be modified to incorporate auxiliary lanes and the existing steel girders that will be replaced with segmental concrete construction. This work will also include replacing the existing signing, Intelligent Transportation System and lighting elements along I-59/20. Vehicles traveling through Birmingham along I-59/20 will be detoured on I-459 during construction. Local traffic will be able to use the improved 11th Avenue North corridor to access the CBD.”
The current plan would cut-off more access to Birmingham neighborhoods like Norwood, Druid Hills, Fountain Heights, and Smithfield. These residents would have to take streets that will be filled with a lot of traffic to reach downtown. These residents would be divided by an even bigger freeway. I am going out to say this, I am NOT in support of the current plans supported by ALDOT. This plan would divide downtown Birmingham from the BJCC and the new entertainment district. Seriously, who would like to walk under a massive bridge to reach the convention complex?
Residents living in North Birmingham would have to get on busy streets to reach downtown which could impact their safety. And making 11th Avenue North a 5-lane highway right next to the BJCC will not be safe for pedestrians. What if ALDOT considered doing another plan? A plan to tear down the I-20/I-59 bridge through downtown and instead replace it with a park?
Or I-20/I-59 could be buried through downtown.
Several people in Birmingham wants ALDOT to permanently tear down the bridge to connect downtown Birmingham to the BJCC. This is an idea that has already been done in other cities in America. The group Congress for the New Urbanism has a page set up where they encourage cities to tear down old highways to re-develop cities. View it at: http://www.cnu.org/highways
And in New Orleans, residents are wanting a portion of I-10 along Claiborne Avenue torn down.
Residents are wanting ALDOT to re-route I-20/I-59 though the industrial areas in North Birmingham along Finley Ave. This plan would result in downtown being brought back together and it would get rid of the dangerous “Malfunction Junction” which many road geeks hate seeing! Here’s a map of the proposed relocated I-20/I-59.
I think ALDOT can do a better job with the current plan at hand. If ALDOT can not move I-20/I-59 to the north, why not bury the highway? No one visiting Birmingham and the BJCC would like to see a massive highway bridge right in front of them. Birmingham has developed a comprehensive plan for the city. You can view it at: http://www.birminghamcomprehensiveplan.com/
As of now, ALDOT seems to be interested in creating work for the road/bridge lobby rather than truly doing urban design. If ALDOT truly cared about this project, they would hide the highway so downtown can look better! They would also invest in mass transit so people would not have to drive cars. People need to realize that there is more you can do when you are not in a car! It will not kill you to walk a little bit to get to where you want to go. Downtown Birmingham is not dangerous! You just need to get out and explore!
Lots of road geeks online loves to talk about the traffic lights in downtown Gadsden Alabama. The city took a very interesting approach with the intersections along Broad St. in downtown. They took three classic 4-way traffic lights all painted black and placed them at six downtown intersections. Here’s the interesting part, only two of the lights are lighted in each direction. The left traffic light facing your direction is not lighted and is blank. There is also a three traffic light configuration in downtown Alabama City along Wall St. as well. Here are some pictures of the intersections in Gadsden that has this three traffic light configuration.
Sadly, one downtown traffic light along Broad St. does not have this three traffic light configuration. At least it’s painted black!
This week, I went up to Gadsden and one of the things I did was film Interstate 759. I filmed this highway by using a trash can and turned it upside down in the passenger seat. Then I put the camera on top and used some tape so the shaking and movement would be limited.
Hopefully I can do more of these videos in the near future! Enjoy my first road video of I-759!
Over the past few months, I have followed the progress of a new traffic light on U.S. 431 in Anniston. This location used to have an overpass for Pelham Road. This was mostly for a quick connection to the former Fort McClellan from Noble St. and downtown Anniston. Now that the bridge is gone, the new intersection connects Pelham Road to a shopping center.
Former bridge. From Google Maps.
I wanted to start off by showing the construction of the new intersection. These are pictures before everything was paved over.
These are the pictures while the area was being paved.
These are the pictures while the traffic light was on flash mode.
And here are the pictures of the intersection today.
Sadly, there are already problems with this light. The green light time on U.S. 431 is only 15 seconds and its way too short! Several cars are either running red lights or almost rear-ending other cars because of the short green light time. More green light time between the traffic light sensors and the traffic light white line is needed! Here’s video of what I mean.
There are also other changes to get ready for the Anniston Eastern Bypass. The W 43rd St. intersection at U.S. 431 has been re-located.
This week I wanted to talk about some traffic lights along Quintard Ave. that are still malfunctioning! The lights along Quintard at 10th St., 8th St. (AL-202), and Greenbrier Dear Rd. are still going through light cycles when no one is there to trigger the lights. The 10th St. and 8th St. lights are malfunctioning because ped signals to cross Quintard Ave. are still malfunctioning. The ped signal buttons are broken and that causes the ped signals to go to walk on each cycle when they are not supposed too. I have talked about these lights being broken since Summer 2012!
When these lights are malfunctioning, it causes short green light times on Quintard Ave. During the day time, this causes major traffic backups. If no one is paying attention, this causes accidents.
During the last week, I went out to Interstate 20 and took some picture updates. The contraflow has now shifted onto the westbound lanes and the bridges on the westbound lanes are being rebuilt. On the eastbound lanes, a much longer acceleration lane for traffic merging on from exit 185 has been built. This is a huge improvement from the way the lanes were designed. The entire project to widen I-20 to six lanes all the way to exit 188 is still ongoing and will be complete soon. Enjoy the pictures!
Last weekend I went to look at the construction along Quintard Dr. / AL-21 in Oxford. This part of the road in front of Wal-Mart has been dangerous for a long time now. Here’s a former picture from Google Maps.
Construction is taking place to make these intersections a lot safer! When finished, only left turns off of Quintard Dr. will be allowed. While construction is taking place, the median crossovers between the two traffic lights are closed off. Since all traffic has turn at the traffic lights, this is causing big traffic backups!
One thing I found funny was at the Wal-Mart traffic light. There are two left turn lanes but many cars choose the far left turn lane. This causes traffic to back up onto the left lane of AL-21. If you are going to Chick-fil-A or the gas station, why not cut through the Wal-Mart parking lot?
I wish people would use the left turn lanes properly instead of making a dangerous U-Turn at the Wal-Mart traffic light. Cars are making U-Turns while cars are turning right from the Wal-Mart parking lot. It won’t take long for an accident to happen!
I also wanted to talk about Greenbrier Dear Road. I thought the speed limits were going down to 35 between Hillyer Robinson Parkway and Quintard Ave. But nope, the speed limits are 35 from Golden Springs Road all the way to Quintard Ave.
Since I live along this stretch of road, I have noticed NO ONE following the new speed limits. All the cars are going 45-50 including me! I am afraid this is setting up to be a speed trap for the city to make some money. I guess I will be getting the media involved in this as well.
By the way, the Sunday Discussion post talking about the major traffic problems along Leon Smith Parkway was viewed by many people. Read that post below!
