Hoover mayor won't support recent road connection options for Trace Crossings

Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato today said he does not support any of the potential new connector routes between the Trace Crossings community and John Hawkins Parkway that were shared with the public last week.

Tim Westhoven, the city's chief operations officer, last week shared with the City Council's Public Works Committee four conceptual ideas that were identified by engineering consultants as potential ways to help relieve some of the traffic in Trace Crossings.

Those ideas were met with a good deal of outrage by people in neighborhoods such as Cahaba River Estates and the Willow Trace and Park Trace sectors of Trace Crossings.

Brocato said he wasn’t shocked that many of the options identified by engineers went through existing neighborhoods, but he was disappointed there weren’t more opportunities that didn’t infringe on the neighborhoods.

Those concepts that didn’t go through neighborhoods were either environmentally unsound or too costly, and those that went through neighborhoods were “brutal” in their impact, the mayor said.

“I can’t get behind any of the proposals that are out there,” Brocato said. “And I don’t really believe the council will get behind them as well. I’d say they’re dead in the water.”

Councilman John Greene, chairman of the Public Works Committee, said he would “never say never” about the four options presented last week, but there was virtually no positive feedback about them. “The citizens who we work for are very much against those four roads,” he said.

He and some other council members said they would like engineers to take a broader look at the entire Trace Crossings area as they look for solutions.

Councilmen Curt Posey and Mike Shaw said when they voted to fund a study of ways to get out of Trace Crossings, they expected it to include options leading to South Shades Crest Road and Morgan Road. What they got was more narrow in focus.

“It is in no way the entire study we were looking for,” Posey said.

Councilman Derrick Murphy said he still supports the idea of evaluating all potential options, but the ones presented last week appear to be more problematic than beneficial.

The mayor said he and other city officials will continue looking at other more substantial solutions to the traffic congestion in Trace Crossings instead of the routes presented last week that were more of a “Band-Aid” fix.

The best solution identified so far is a new Interstate 459 interchange near South Shades Crest Road, the mayor said. It’s an idea he has been pushing since he came into office.

At the mayor’s recommendation, the Hoover City Council in December 2016 agreed to pay $2 million to buy 31 acres between South Shades Crest Road and I-459 to help make the interstate interchange possible.

The interchange, as proposed then, would be a little south of South Shades Crest Road and would include a new road over to South Shades Crest around Brock’s Gap Parkway and, to the north, a connection to Alabama 150 near or at Ross Bridge Parkway.

Westhoven said creating a new access point to I-459 would pull some of that traffic currently using Stadium Trace Parkway to get to I-459. It would be quicker access to the interstate for people in neighborhoods off Brock’s Gap Parkway, as well as people living down South Shades Crest Road, he said.

The problem is that the interchange is estimated to cost about $40 million. “It’s always about money,” Brocato said.

The mayor said he and his staff have had talks with U.S Sen. Richard Shelby’s office, Gov. Kay Ivey’s staff, the Alabama Department of Transportation and Jefferson County about the city’s need for the interchange. Shelby County needs to be involved, too, he said.

“This is something that needs to be addressed that affects one of the biggest cities in the state of Alabama,” he said. “If we can develop that interchange, it helps all of western Hoover” and Helena, he said.

The mayor said the gas tax increase recently passed by the Legislature might provide some creative ways to finance the interchange.

City officials also have other ideas to help relieve traffic congestion in western Hoover, the mayor said.

The city already is working to obtain right of way to add a second northbound lane on South Shades Crest Road from Willow Lakes Drive to Alabama 150 and, in the future, would like to extend that extra northbound lane to Russet Woods Drive. Another future idea, not yet funded, would add a second southbound lane on South Shades Crest Road from Alabama 150 to at least Russet Woods Drive.

Two more conceptual ideas for relieving traffic in western Hoover include building a new road connecting Stadium Trace Parkway with South Shades Crest Road and building another road to connect Morgan Road to South Shades Crest.

There already is a one-lane road that extends from South Shades Crest and the Brock’s Gap Training Center to Stadium Trace Parkway near the entrance to Blackridge, but it is a private road and now used only for emergency vehicles, Westhoven said.

That certainly could be an opportunity for some traffic relief, the mayor said.

City officials also still have some adjustments to make to the timing of traffic lights on John Hawkins Parkway, between Stadium Trace Parkway and I-459, Westhoven said. Those adjustments likely will be made once all the new traffic signals are activated, he said.

Greene said he is very much in favor of widening Stadium Trace Parkway to include more lanes. It probably would involve removing some of the trees, but "I think that's something that very much could help," he said.

The mayor said he has been inundated with complaints about the traffic in Trace Crossings for the past two years. The traffic issues are the result of 20 to 25 years of development approved long ago, he said.

“Those type of issues should have been addressed in some type of master plan,” he said. “Now, we essentially are faced with trying to put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak.”

He realizes the urgency of the situation, he said.

“There’s a huge sports complex out there, and it’s going to bring thousands of people,” he said. “The traffic’s not going to decrease. It’s going to increase. We’ve got to do something that gets people out of Trace Crossings onto the interstate system as quickly as possible.”

This article was updated with comments from Hoover City Council members at 8:46 p.m.