This week’s highway feature is inspired by an article in today’s Commercial Appeal:
This is the interchange of I-40 and unsigned SPR 300 on the northwest side of Memphis. It’s an impressive interchange constructed over wetlands and floodplain where what’s currently seemingly an appendix of the interstate system around Memphis meets I-40.
There’s been plenty of roadgeek speculation online as to potential uses for SPR 300, but a few years ago it was announced that it would carry the I-69 mainline in its access to Memphis from the north.
I highlight the interchange today because of the aforementioned Commercial Appeal article, which discusses plans to create a greenway corridor along the Wolf River, which passes immediately to the south of the interchange.
A river that was once so foul it was rerouted away from Downtown is about to become the centerpiece of Memphis’ most ambitious park project in decades.
The City Council this week is expected to approve the master plan for the Wolf River Greenway — a $28 million, 22-mile-long corridor of trails and nature areas stretching from the Mississippi to Collierville.[...]
The project is set to begin in the coming fiscal year, when $400,000 is budgeted for initial land acquisition. By the time it’s completed, at least 10 to 15 years from now, the greenway will link schools, parks and commercial and entertainment centers in neighborhoods as diverse as impoverished North Memphis and the affluent Houston Levee area.
This could be seen as a sign of the continuing changes in Memphis, as it continues to evolve from the troubled metropolis I lived in from 1978-1990. Since I left, I’ve been very impressed with the redevelopment of Downtown, as well as the rebirth of Beale Street which has become a renown entertainment district, significantly different from the burned-out urban wasteland I was introduced to in ‘78.
That there’s a move afoot to create a major greenway through North Memphis, along the much-maligned Wolf River is truly remarkable to me.