Jackson Transportation Development Thread

[Rural King]

This thread is designed to be a catch all for anyone from Jackson or elsewhere wanting to post new developments reagarding road, rail, and/or mass transit projects in the Jackson metro.

Hopefully in the coming months or years more Jackson area folks will join the forum and help such topics get posted and discussed. So if your from Jackson (or elsewhere in WTN) and lurking please feel free to join UP and help build upon the city's prescence here on the forum.

[Rural King]

According to the Jackson Sun the City of Jackson is pursuing a $1.4 million dollar state grant to resurface, landscape and better the lighting infrastructure along East Chester (US 70) from the Holland Avenue intersection eastwards. City officials hope these improvements will help encourage redevelopment projects along East Chester in East Jackson which still bears visible scars from the 2003 tornado that damaged much of the area. The city will contribute $220,000 city dollars to the project if the grant is received.

The city received $600,000 dollars in state transportation funds last year to pave East Chester up to Holland Avenue.

Hopefully the city will receive this grant money as the area in question is in serious need of revamping and infrastructure improvements. It currently has a very dated and run-down appearance, so an updating to make the corridor cleaner and more modern would do wonders to encourage are redevelopment.

[Rural King]

Rockabilly Highway in the works

The Jackson Sun has had a couple articles recently, includeing this one, which have have covered the legislature's passing of legislation that will name US 45 in Madison, Chester, and Hardeman County as the "Rockabilly Highway". The bill will empower TDOT to work with local communities and counties along the route on erecting signage to help promote the history and roots of "Rockabilly" in West Tennessee, and help focus the marketing of this portion of Tennessee's muscial heritage more effectively. Jackson is recognized as the birthplace of 'Rockabilly' with Carl Perkins -Lake County/Jackson native- being one of the artists most closesly associated with the genre (along with some of Elvis's work and many others) and eventually led to the creation of the "Rockabilly Hall of Fame Museum" in the 'Hub City'.

I think this sounds like a great and perhaps overdue idea to implement in promoting this portion's of Tennessee's unique musical heritage. It will be interesting to see how much more tourism this might be able to generate. Seems like some signage along I-40 in Madison County might have been a good idea as well, as that's is where the majority of out-of-state travelers and tourists in thet area pass along. Perhaps that is in the works as well.

[Rural King]

A recent news story on Jackson't WBBJ CH 7 ABC affiliate reported on plans to look at upgrading the interstate through the city from its current standard four-lane configuration to six lanes and updating several problem interchanges. You can watch the video report of this story by going to this WBBJ CH 7 news link..

If you have ever gotten off at exit 80 at US 45 Bypass you know how out-dated this interchange is with its lack of an adequate merge lane onto 45 By-Pass for the amount of traffic that road carries during rush-hour traffic during the mornings and evenings. The whole Vann Drive/US 45 By-Pass/I-40 interchange in North Jackson is pretty disfunctional in many regards and has to be extremely confusing to folks not familar with the interchange- esp. traveling south of US 45 By-Pass with it's weird split at the junction.

Upgrading the interstate to six lanes also would help with merging issues getting onto I-40 which can be a tad interesting at times if traffic is heavy.

I for one I'm very glad to see that TDOT is looking at upgrading our interstate infrastructure to meet the needs and realities of our growing city and that of others along I-40 and I-81. It's very timely and I have no complaints.