Transportation
As our community continues to grow one thing continues, and historically always has been at top of the Chamber’s list of priorities. TRANSPORTATION. Transportation isn’t glamorous or even fun, but for the Chamber’s volunteer transportation committee chairman, James Craine, he
has made it his focus for many years. James keeps a pulse with the city, county, and TDOT for ongoing projects as well as much needed new projects in our community.
Unlike many other projects or endeavors, transportation is a process and typically one that can stretch 20 or more years on an individual project. Transportation moves quickest with consensus and James is good at working out issues and building the partnerships needed to expedite projects
as quickly as possible. We have found James’ kryptonite in one of our recent projects in the form of sink holes. To be fair, our highway 66 project wasn’t a sink hole, but a slope failure based on poor materials which is out of James’ control. I am happy to report that Mr. Craine, weather and slope’s cooperating, plans to open the 66 connector sometime this summer with at least 2 direct lanes with a projected Fall opening of the full project.
There are currently many other projects in the works and we do thank James Craine for his diligent work on these for our community. We are hopeful to have James and representatives from TDOT at an upcoming Chamber meeting to discuss in detail more of these projects and how they affect business and industry in our community. The process may be slow and tedious, but the results and traffic counts pay off as plans come to fruition.