As a former resident of the Wiregrass region of southeastern Alabama, it’s nice to see some (admittedly slow) progress being made on connecting Dothan to the interstate system. From the Dothan Eagle:
ALDOT is currently soliciting residents’ opinions of three possible routes for the freeway, and no route will be chosen until the department is able to review the feedback.
“I don’t have any exact time frame,” Biddick said. “We have to look at any potential issues brought up in the feedback, then address those to determine which route would be the best.”[...]
ALDOT expects the project to greatly reduce through traffic in the city.
“I think it’ll help reduce a lot of the congestion on Ross Clark Circle and allow for a lot more development around here,” Biddick said.
For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure (misfortune?) of experiencing the Ross Clark Circle, especially when hordes of folks are headed to/from Panama City Beach and the Redneck Riviera…the Circle can be bad.
Dothan has a surprising amount of commercial development for a town its size. Admittedly, a lot of that is the result of Dothan being the only town its size within some distance, and therefore is able to support quite a bit of commercial development due to its role as a regional economic hub.
Talk of connecting Dothan to the Interstate system, either with its own spur, or as part of a larger project extending up to I-185 outside Columbus, GA; or to the new bypass being built around Montgomery, AL, has been around for quite a while.
However, I wonder if regional planners might be asking for trouble by promoting a new freeway as an excuse for more development. After all, even though Dothan is commercially more significant than its census figures would suggest…there is a limit to the amount of development it can sustain.
If local leaders encourage development along a new freeway bypass, I can’t help but expect that the Circle will start to be as blighted as downtown Dothan became when businesses shifted to the Circle.