Decatur officials travel to Washington to seek funding for bridge study
DECATUR, Ala. (WHNT) — The existing ‘Steamboat Bill’ memorial bridge that connects Madison County to Decatur is a traffic nightmare according to Decatur citizens.
A series of public input meetings helped to determine that a new bridge would remedy the congestion.
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In May of last year, Decatur city leaders agreed to move forward after the first phase of the feasibility study was completed. About 50 feasible routes were created to help commuters to cross the river.
Decatur Mayor Tab Bowling told News 19 that those routes will likely change if the next phase of the study could continue.
“And now it’s narrowing those down to the one that will be the best alignment to use to go across the river,” Bowling said.
Phase two of the study would be refining those routes based on a deeper evaluation of data found in phase one.
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Bowling and his team of city officials met with Alabama’s congressional delegation in Washington D.C. for both federal and state funding to complete the second phase.
“We had an opportunity to visit with Congressman Dale Strong, Senator Tommy Tuberville and people from Senator Katie Britt’s staff,” said Bowling. ‘They were very productive meetings and we covered quite a few topics.”
The main topic of discussion the mayor said was how much funding is needed to complete the second phase of the feasibility study for the bridge.
Decatur did receive a one-million-dollar federal grant for the first phase.
The second phase would include a more extensive traffic study on bridge location, design and engineering.
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Bowling says that the delegation is aware that money for a bridge is needed, and they are very supportive of it.
“The shortest route is one that, I think, that will be selected for a variety of reasons; one, the cost and two, the less impact on the environment,” Bowling said. “It barely touches the Swan Creek management area and that was something that was a great concern to those that are into duck hunting and things of that nature. It looks like that will likely be the route that they are focused on.”
Bowling added the decision by the congressional delegation to approve federal funding may take up to a year.
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