Posted on 09/15/2018 10:47:40 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
A group of college students is working together with lawmakers and communities to try to make the route to locations throughout the southeast a little shorter by using Interstate 14 to connect Killeen, Texas, with Columbus, Georgia. The idea started when Frank Lumpkin was in high school, taking part in Youth Leadership Columbus. While taking part in the class, he said he realized that the city needed more infrastructure to succeed, and he said he has been working on the project ever since.
“From the moment I saw this robust transportation network that linked the southern military instillations, would address persistent poverty issues that we are facing and would overall connect isolated places, I just had a gut feeling, and I knew this is what needed to happen for the future of our region,” Lumpkin said.
Now, Lumpkin is a sophomore at the University of Georgia, and he is working with other students and lawmakers to find support for Interstate 14.
“It addresses poverty through opportunity, and opportunity is better for everyone,” Lumpkin said. “It is better business, and it is going to attract the sort of businesses that our region currently is not able to persuade to come here.”
The students expect the interstate to have a major economic impact on cities and counties within a 50 to 100-mile radius of the interstate by attracting businesses and jobs to communities near the interstate.
“The economic impact could be huge on this,” said Justus Armstrong, a sophomore at Auburn University. “First you have jobs in construction and maintenance on I-14 itself. That is before the interstate is even built. The main way that jobs and economic prosperity is going to be implemented is through the manufacturers and business coming in. These manufacturers are going to need a large roadway to ship their products out to market quicker. The way that is going to happen is an interstate.”
Significantly for Troup County residents, the interstate would create an easy travel route across portions of the Alabama and Mississippi that can only be accessed currently by smaller state highways.
“This opens up for LaGrange the entire southern part of Georgia and Alabama because we’ll have a corridor that goes all the way from Columbus to Augusta and from Columbus to Montgomery and into Mississippi,” Lumpkin said.
“All of those regions currently are untapped because they have no way to be connected to the grand transportation network that we call the interstate highway system. That will allow people in those areas to commute to LaGrange. It provides that shortcut from [Interstate] 14 to [Interstate] 85.”
The students were optimistic about the possibility of the interstate being built, and with local governments in Columbus, Georgia; Russell County, Alabama; Warner Robins, Georgia; Talbot County, Georgia; Macon, Georgia; Butler, Georgia; and Phenix City, Alabama, on board the proposal is making headway, but the students realize that the project still has a long way to go.
“The biggest thing holding us back is lack of awareness,” Lumpkin said. To learn more about Interstate 14, visit My14.org.
an 8-lane hwy from Casper WY to Idaho Falls
And from Brattleboro VT to Manchester Nh
And Livingston TN to Huntsville AL
Spellchecker is a destructive WMD
Whats the fun in that? My car corners well and is super fun to push it. Straight lines are for those without passion.
We must have had an era of 'parents hanging stupid names on their kids' of which I was totally unaware.
Half the fun of watching college football games these days is to LOL/shake head incredulously at what some of those young people are called.
That and the tens of billions of dollars it would take to fund it.
From the SW tip of CT to the NE tip of CT. With no exits or entrances in CT.
Yes! Many more. I would like one every few miles - East, West, North, South. As long as none of them come closer than 10 miles from my house and town.
I still remember when they were constructing I-10 through Texas back in the 70s... The explosions they did on the nearby hills blew most of our windows out from the concussions (all of our neighborhood) :p
Because Fort Hood.
Yes. A parallel east-west route is a good idea all over.
No one in my area got why M-6 was a good idea— until it had been in place for three years. After all, I-96 looped all around the city with plenty of on/off ramps...
We need the slow pokes to stay in the right hand lane
Exactly, taxpayer money poured down an abyss. Already have I-10 and I-20. The need for another is?
And you make sure that the businesses you’re attracting aren’t radical, liberal, hipster, tech companies that champion the working man, yet demand special tax breaks, then flood your “Pleasant Conservative” place in the world with said, radical, liberal, hipsters, who turn the place into a radical, liberal, hipster hub, IE Austin, Tx, etc.
I’d settle for a decent interstate between Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Ever hear of Fort Hood, the largest military post in the United States?
IH-14 is intended to connect military posts in the south central part of the country to make deployment faster...
We live 1/2 mile from the current IH-14. In order to go east we must first drive 3 hours to get to the closest approach to either IH-10 or IH-20. That same three hours would put us well into Louisiana if IH-14 was in place...
BTW, when President Eisenhower proposed the Interstate system, the major purpose was to enhance military deployment...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System
The problem with the interstate system is that it was built to connect downtowns to downtowns (in part to evacuate survivors of a nuclear war).
Hitler was smarter. He designed his system to bypass city centers so traffic would move better. (Of course, suburban sprawl has led to rush hour traffic jams (stau) in Germany, but it’s still not as bad as trying to drive cross country in the US.)
As for this plan, they need to go past Killeen to tie into 10 or 20 and add Bliss, and then go east from Benning to add in Fort Gordon, and tie to I-20 (Fort Jackson).
Then they’d have a straight shot cross country from Bliss to Jackson, with the only urban congestion in Columbus and Augusta. (The Columbus - Augusta link could swing through Warner Robbins, if desired).
The route would be a bit north of Polk, and pass near Camp Shelby.
How about a wall along our Southern Border? I mean if they get some extra time.
purpose was to enhance military deployment...
Yes, as well as to provide landing strips.
If they’re going to go out and dig the road themselves with their own funds, then I’m all for it. Otherwise, lets finish the current construction that’s been ongoing for decades ad decades with no end in sight.
Because he mentioned military, and Fort Hood is Killeen, TX.
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