Northern Beltline route details released by Alabama Department of Transportation prior to hearings

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A newly released document by the Alabama Department of Transportation provides the most detailed mapping of where the proposed Northern Beltline around Birmingham would go.

It also contains a timeline stretching out more than 20 years for the construction of the 52-mile beltline, which would follow an east-west arc from Interstate 59 near Argo to I-20/59 south of Birmingham.

The document, posted on the department's website at dot.alabama.gov Monday evening in advance of public hearings being held next week in Gardendale and Bessemer, includes segment-by-segment satellite images with overlays of the six-lane interstate and its interchanges with other roads. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that the project will cost $4.7 billion over the course of 25 years.

An initial environmental impact study conducted on the project in 1997 estimated that 279 houses and 16 businesses would have to be relocated to make way for the road. Because of growth in the corridor and refinements to the design, that relocation number has jumped to a total of 520 relocations -- 485 residences and 35 businesses.

ALDOT has finished buying land for one 3.4-mile segment of the beltline, connecting Alabama 79 and Alabama 75 near Pinson.

According to the schedule, construction on that segment could start next year. By 2013, ALDOT expects to start buying land for segments from Alabama 79 west to Interstate 65. The beltline would intersect with I-65 just north of Gardendale.

ALDOT doesn't schedule any land buying in the other direction --from Alabama 75 to I-59 -- until 2025. And land acquisition on the western leg -- from U.S. 78 to the junction of I-459 and I-20/59 -- isn't scheduled to start until 2031.

Proponents of the project hope Alabama's congressional representatives can secure extra federal money that would speed the project along.

The newly released document indicates that ALDOT has been working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this year over endangered species protection. The streams in the segment from Alabama 79 to Alabama 75 were surveyed for the presence of watercress darters, rush darters and vermilion darters, endangered fish known to be present in nearby streams. None were found, and according to ALDOT the habitat in the area was unsuitable for watercress darters and rush darters and was marginal for vermilion darters. "Based on the survey, the presence of any of the target species in the study area appears highly unlikely," ALDOT reports.

The document released this week was just a summary of a larger ongoing re-evaluation of the entire Northern Beltline project. According to ALDOT spokesman Tony Harris, the full re-evaluation document will be made public when it is completed. ALDOT is also working on an assessment of the indirect and cumulative impacts of the roadway and an updated environmental impact study for the western half of the project.

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