There may be a light at the end of the tunnel for traffic congestion in Madison County.
Madison County recently received $8 million from the state to fund the Reunion interchange, which District 4 Supervisor David Bishop expects to have a great impact on traffic.
“This is going to help all of that area with traffic,” Bishop said. “I’m talking Gluckstadt Road, 463, Bozeman Road. It’s going to help all of those. It’s a great idea.”
“That’s a great help to us,” Bishop said. “Everybody is on board with this thing.”
The project is expected to be complete in approximately five years.
After three years of discussion and planning, the next step is finding an engineering firm to do the environmental process.
Bishop said the project will run from Highway 463 to Highway 51. He said this will allow for a direct route all the way across.
“What we’re working on now is going from Bozeman Road over the interstate to Highway 51,” Bishop said. “So, on the west side, it’s going to connect to Reunion Parkway. So, it will be all the way from 463 to 51.”
Bishop expects the project to also allow for a positive economic impact on the county.
“This will be an economic boost for the whole county,” Bishop said. “Matter of fact, we had a traffic study done a while back to show the traffic congestion on Bozeman and Gluckstadt Road. This is going to take a lot of traffic off those roads.”
“It’s a project that should have been completed a long time ago,” Bishop added. “It was a slow start. This is a very important thing for Madison County.”
In 2004, Madison County’s comprehensive plan noted the need for an interchange to help alleviate congestion on the west side of the interstate and to help with growth on the east side.
In 2008, the Madison County board of supervisors worked to begin the Reunion Interchange project.
The board of supervisors at the time issued a total of $50 million in road bonds, the majority of which were to fund the interchange, according to previous Sun reports.
Approximately $33 million in bond revenue was to be spent on the interchange project.
County officials told residents that the bonds could be paid off without a tax hike, but in 2008, the board voted to raise property taxes by 3.33 mills.
However, Transportation Commissioner Dick Hall spoke out and voted against the project because the county would have had to foot the bill.
Hall wanted the board to request that MDOT build the interchange to save taxpayers’ money.
Hall later voted to let the county move forward with the interchange but would not provide any money for it beyond the $6 million that MDOT had already agreed to give.
In June 2010, the county sued MDOT and claimed the state reneged on the $6 million it had promised the county.
According to previous Sun reports, the interchange project was cancelled, and the bond money was reallocated to other projects.
In 2013, the county finalized a legal settlement with MDOT regarding the interchange. MDOT gave the county $6 million for resurfacing work on part of Highland Colony Parkway, Yandell Road and Reunion Parkway phase one.
Also, under the terms of the settlement, MDOT was required to build the Reunion interchange at I-55 when traffic warranted it.
