Transportation Reform in Tennessee
Turning the tide on destructive road-building
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The Latest News:
As Tennessee looks at needed improvements to two major interstate corridors, SELC is calling for measures to reduce congestion, curb tailpipe emissions, decrease fuel consumption, protect water resources, and avoid more loss of rural lands.
Read more... - Filed under: Land & Community Global Warming
- This case affects: Tennessee
- Meet the attorneys on this case: Trip Pollard
For years, the Tennessee Department of Transportation’s aggressive highway building has wrought damage on the environment, public health and many communities. The agency at times has evaded federal and state laws, limited public participation and failed to adequately reduce impacts from its highways. On one construction project near Nashville, TDOT and its contractors buried streams and springs in mud, temporarily shutting down a public water supply, and were fined millions of dollars.
On the Front Line
SELC’s legal and policy work has highlighted the profound problems with how TDOT operates and has advocated a number of improvements to projects and policies. SELC is now a major player in improving the way Tennessee plans and builds highways, helping to redirect the state toward more sustainable transportation.
Reforming the agency has moved to the top of the agenda at the highest levels in state government. Governor Bredesen was elected in part on his pledge to fix TDOT, and the first changes under his administration included the appointment of the agency’s first Chief of Environment and Planning and creation of TDOT’s Environmental Advisory Council, on which SELC serves.
The Road Ahead
TDOT has significantly improved its environmental processes and has pledged to design and build highways using a "context-sensitive" approach to protect environmental and cultural resources. It has also recognized the need to move away from an asphalt-centered approach to transportation and to provide a greater range of transportation choices, including freight and passenger rail, transit, bicycling, and walking. The agency’s performance, however, often has not matched its rhetoric.
SELC is advocating that the agency:
- Increase funding of transportation alternatives, particularly transit and freight rail;
- Scrap or redesign a number of destructive highway proposals;
- Analyze and reduce the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions projects will cause; and
- Broaden public participation in transportation planning.
SELC continues to work with citizen groups to keep momentum going for this extraordinary effort.
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