Unjamming Hoover traffic
Jeremy Kizzire doesn’t have too many complaints about traffic in Hoover, but he very much looks forward to the city doing something to improve the flow on South Shades Crest Road.
“Traffic on that road is horrible, and everybody in Hoover will tell you that,” said Kizzire, who lives in the Whispering Oaks community off South Shades Crest.
It’s particularly bad in the mornings, when people are trying to get their children to school amid rush-hour work traffic, he said. “They should have four-laned it probably years ago.”
Kizzire said he’s thankful there’s a plan in the works to improve the situation.
City officials have identified 23 road projects they believe will help alleviate traffic congestion and prepare for future traffic in Hoover, and South Shades Crest Road is on that list [see graphic below].
But most of these projects are in the early idea stage, and funding for most of them still has not been identified, Mayor Frank Brocato said.
INADEQUATE ROADS
According to the city’s draft comprehensive plan, most of Hoover’s arterial roads that carry people into and out of the city are inadequate to handle traffic volumes with their present design [see graphic below.].
This includes all of U.S. 31 and U.S. 280 in Hoover and portions of Alabama 150 [also know as John Hawkins Parkway], South Shades Crest Road, Morgan Road, Lorna Road, Old Rocky Ridge Road, Old Montgomery Highway, Shades Crest Road, Alford Avenue, Chapel Lane, Valleydale Road, Alabama 119 [also known as Cahaba Valley Road] and Hugh Daniel Drive.
“The traffic volume on these streets is nearing or has surpassed capacity, so you see a breakdown in traffic flow,” City Planner Mac Martin said.
According to the comprehensive plan, the causes of congestion on Hoover’s roads appear to have less to do with the number of lanes a roadway has and more to do with an overall lack of connections in the road network.
In the Bluff Park and Shades Mountain area, roads are more interconnected and provide more options for travelers, distributing traffic better and lessening the load on any particular major route, Martin said.
But other parts of Hoover built with a more suburban development pattern tend to provide only one or two ways in or out and limited connections within communities. This frequently forces all the traffic onto the same collector streets and major arteries, overloading them, Martin said.
This is particularly the case south of Interstate 459, where a combination of large subdivisions and apartment complexes with limited access and challenging terrain limit the number of north-south and east-west crosstown arterials.
When commuter traffic from other communities driving through Hoover is thrown into the mix, it adds to the congestion.
SOUTHWEST HOOVER
On the west side of Hoover, commuter traffic from Helena generates most of the traffic volume on Morgan Road and some on South Shades Crest Road, but there also a number of large subdivisions that feed onto South Shades Crest. The two-lane roads are ill-equipped to handle the load.
Jefferson County is preparing to widen Morgan Road to five lanes between South Shades Crest and I-459, and Hoover is working on a plan to add a second northbound lane on the northern end of South Shades Crest. The City Council has allocated $1.5 million for the lane addition, which should cover half of the project, and city officials have been lobbying Jefferson County to provide the other half.
However, a second northbound lane is not projected to provide significant long-term relief, according to Hoover’s comprehensive plan.
A potential second phase would extend that extra northbound lane back from Eden Ridge Drive to Russet Woods Drive, and a potential third phase would add a second southbound lane from Alabama 150 to Russet Woods Drive.
But the latter phase is more conceptual in nature and subject to change, especially if Hoover is successful at getting funding for a proposed new I-459 interchange just west of South Shades Crest.
City officials now are trying to get federal dollars allocated for an interchange justification study.
City officials estimate that a new I-459 interchange would shift 6,000 vehicles a day off Alabama 150 and dramatically change traffic flows on South Shades Crest Road, particularly north of Brock’s Gap Parkway.
TRACE CROSSINGS
But Brocato said his No. 1 priority among road projects is to find at least one alternate way out of the Trace Crossings community.
“We have to solve that problem — the traffic jam that is in and around Trace Crossings,” the mayor said.
There now are a limited number of ways in and out of the community, with most traffic either using Stadium Trace Parkway or Brock’s Gap Parkway. Right now, Stadium Trace Parkway technically has the capacity to handle the traffic that is there, City Engineer Rodney Long said.
But new shopping centers and thousands of homes being built and expanded use of the Hoover Metropolitan Complex will only add to the traffic, Brocato said.
City officials are working with a traffic consultant to identify other potential routes out of Trace Crossings and hope to present options in the next month or two, he said. “We’re in a hurry.”
City Administrator Allan Rice said the city is reviewing 24 options, varying in cost from $3.5 million to $35 million.
One option identified in the comprehensive plan is to build a small section of road between Hoover High School and Cahaba River Estates Road, which feeds onto Alabama 150 next to CarMax. Residents in Cahaba River Estates have expressed strong opposition, saying it would destroy the rural character of their neighborhood.
Another option shown in the plan is to build a new road between South Shades Crest and Stadium Trace Parkway, connecting with Stadium Trace near the Lake Wilborn community.
Another comprehensive plan project would add a much longer road stretching all the way from Morgan Road and connect it to South Shades Crest, near where the proposed new I-459 interchange would be. This road essentially would serve as a bypass route for traffic coming from Helena and the new Blackridge community in Hoover, potentially providing significant relief for the rest of Morgan Road, South Shades Crest and Stadium Trace Parkway. One idea proposed is to make that a toll road for inter-city commuters.
OTHER PROJECTS
City officials also are proposing a new road between Ross Bridge Parkway and Shades Crest Road, which they say would provide a quicker and alternate route for people in Ross Bridge to get to central Hoover. Now, those drivers have to drive southwest to Alabama 150 and back northeast to the central part of the city.
That connector road was previously proposed during Mayor Barbara McCollum’s administration, but plans were set aside due to opposition. Many residents on Shades Crest Road and the Friends of Shades Mountain group still oppose that road, saying it would remove a large section of forest from the mountain, open up other parts of the mountain to potential development and add traffic on Shades Crest.
In eastern Hoover, one of the road projects proposed is a new road between Inverness Parkway and Cahaba River Road, providing an alternate way to get to and from Inverness and keeping some traffic off U.S. 280. However, it would require a new bridge over the Cahaba River.
Brocato emphasized that most of these projects are just in the idea stage and are not guaranteed to happen. City Administrator Allan Rice said they are “projects with a little p, not a big P.”
The plans could change depending on how the city actually develops and findings of environmental studies, and perhaps most importantly, the City Council would have to identify how to help pay for the projects, he said.
For most of its big road projects, the city relies on money from the state and federal government as the primary source of funding and provides 20 percent of the cost either itself or in conjunction with Jefferson or Shelby County. But even coming up with 20 percent can be challenging.
There is an effort underway at the state level to raise gasoline taxes to fund more road projects. Brocato declined to say whether he supports such a tax increase but said, “if they pass a gas tax, we certainly want to be in line to get our fair share.”
City officials also don’t want to rely solely on road construction to improve transportation in Hoover. The comprehensive plan also recommends improvements to the public transit system and includes a separate bicycle and pedestrian plan that calls for the addition of new sidewalks and bike paths.
The city is looking for multiple ways for people to get around, both for practical transportation needs and recreational and quality-of-life enjoyment, Brocato and Martin said.
“That’s the way we want the future of Hoover to look,” Brocato said.