By William C. Singleton III
Hoover officials have agreed to fund the city’s portion of a study to improve a feeder road of U.S. 280. But its sister cities have yet to pull the trigger.
The Hoover City Council recently agreed to contribute $60,000 toward a study to redesign Grants Mill Road between Interstate 459 and Alabama 119 to carry more traffic. The idea behind the redesign is to take more traffic off U.S. 280, a heavily traveled highway that handles more than 84,000 vehicles a day.
Various proposals have been floated to improve traffic on U.S. 280, including an elevated toll system – an idea that has fallen by the wayside. Still, officials of cities that border U.S. 280 continue to seek a solution.
The latest proposal has a host of municipal and county governments banding together to fund a study to improve Grants Mill Road so it could handle excess U.S. 280 traffic.
Birmingham has agreed to pay $560,000 to fund the more than $1 million study if other municipalities surrounding U.S. 280 and Jefferson and Shelby counties contribute their share. The cities of Hoover, Irondale, Leeds, Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills, Jefferson and Shelby counties, and the Birmingham Water Works Board are being asked to pay $60,000 each.
Birmingham is paying the lion’s share because most of the improvements would be within its jurisdiction. Improvement proposals include realigning Grants Mill and making it a 55 mph road. Grants Mill twists and turns and becomes wide and then narrow as it moves from Interstate 459 to Alabama 119. Portions of the road carry a speed limit of 35 mph, and the road can get backed up with traffic on the U.S. 280 side.
Hoover Mayor Gary Ivey said he believes the study is a step in the right direction.
“The prediction is that if you make improvements to this road, you’ll take as much as 15 to 18 percent of the traffic off 280,” he said. “That’s the prediction, but the study will tell us that.”
Vestavia Hills Mayor Alberto “Butch” Zaragoza said his city hasn’t decided whether it will contribute to the study. “It’s something that the council will have to decide,” he said, though he gave no time table.
Mountain Brook City Manager Sam Gaston said officials in his city haven’t been presented with a formal request to contribute to such a study.
“I’ve been to some meetings, and some numbers have been presented, but we have not received a formal request,” he said.
Gaston noted that the Alabama Department of Transportation’s project two years ago to alter traffic lights has helped traffic move through Mountain Brook. He also said continued improvements to I-459 should help more.
“Any time you can give some relief to take more traffic off 280, that would be a good thing,” Gaston said. “But as far as our involvement in that, that would be for the council to decide.”
Ivey said that if all the governments get on board, the study likely would take two years to complete.
