I-269 To Take Its Toll on Memphis

I-269 will unquestionably take a toll on Shelby County.

That’s why it’s high time for Shelby County to place a toll on I-269.

For too long, there’s been a dismissive attitude about anything that could change the interstate highway’s determined march around the outskirts of Shelby County, including a dip into Fayette County at one point.   As a result, the hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent on the project will be the gift that keeps on giving for developers as it fuels unsustainable sprawl and it fulfills a vision that was hatched deep in Mississippi politics.

Since we started writing about I-269 on this blog, there is some good news.  Concern about its impact has become more pronounced and widespread and understanding about its impact has increased.  Despite that, little that is substantive has been done to translate concern into action, conversations into strategies.

Running the Clock Out

Development interests clearly are hoping for the clock to run out as design and plans for the unneeded interstate move ahead to a point where they cannot be altered.  We’re not at that point quite yet, but we are close.  Because of it, we need our leaders to do something now to mitigate the largely negative impact that I-269 will have on Memphis and Germantown and the negative impact that it will inevitably have on Collierville and Bartlett.

The days of delusion are over, and many in the suburbs who thought I-269 was a godsend are more sober in their thinking.  The highway encourages businesses and people to move to the eastern fringes, where their economic pull and tax revenues will drain city governments located away from its immediate path.  If the current, illogical plan for exits about every mile on I-269 persists, vital tax revenues will move from existing cities to new greenfields of subsidized suburban sprawl.

Once it became clear that the highway could not be sold as an economic artery while depriving Memphis and other cities of much-needed revenues, cheerleaders for I-269 shifted to the justification that it was a vital freight route that would take trucks around the county rather than through the heart of Memphis.

That trucking companies advised local government decades ago that most truckers will ignore such a lengthy detour did little to deter the momentum behind the project since its real impetus was spawned in Mississippi by politicians bent on continuing the predatory policies honed there, as seen in North Mississippi basing its economic development and its cities’ futures on simply stealing people and businesses from Memphis.

Lott of Politics

Driven by the clout of then Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Mississippi politicos outmaneuvered their Tennessee colleagues who believed they could kill I-269 by controlling where and whether it entered Mississippi at all.  That was before Mr. Lott, inspired by campaign donations from development interests, trumped Tennessee officials who opposed the project – from the governor to the Shelby County mayor to the Memphis mayor – by adding wording to a federal bill that essentially took the decision out of Tennessee’s hands while stepping up the schedule for construction and ensuring that it crossed politically influential landowners’ property.

Lott was supported by then U.S. Representative from Texas and House Whip Tom (Hammer) Delay, who had earlier suggested that the I-69 Coalition hire someone who would be uniquely skilled in presenting its case in the nation’s capital. That person just happened to be his brother, who was paid about $300,000 a year. To DeLay’s hammer, Lott played the nail.

If there is one demoralizing aspect of our region’s “growth” over the past 25 years, it has been how some politicians will sell a smarter future for their own short-term political gain.  It’s the sort of motivation that calls on someone like Mr. Lott to take a position that was tantamount to saying, “Memphis and Shelby County be damned.  I need to make these political friends happy.”   Then again, we can’t be too hard on him, because back here at home, county officials were regularly doling out hundreds of millions of dollars to deliver up infrastructure that lined the pockets of preferred developers with millions of dollars although they understood that our community wasn’t truly growing but instead was simply moving people around on the map.

Back then, there were some bold actions that could have been taken, but our local officials blinked and refused to play political hard ball with the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Bredesen Administration so that Shelby County’s interests were given greater voice in the decision-making.

Modest Proposals

Even today, there are some decisions that can be made to mitigate I-269 but it still requires leadership to stand tall for changes and to explain to their constituents why the impacts of this interstate will ultimately raise taxes and weaken existing cities.  First, it requires leaders to come to grips with reality – the way that I-269 will shape the futures of their communities and not for the better.

Three ideas that we can think of offhand:

Green preservation zones. The eastern connector of I-269 that roughly follows the Shelby County line should be protected as a natural reserve area where development is restricted and rural land and key recharge areas for the aquifer are protected.  There’s a compelling argument to be made that along the northern border of the highway in the Millington area, a new industrial park should be built.  Millington needs economic support and its presence could compete with similar emphasis in North Mississippi, but the most eastern section should be set aside and removed from potential development.

Limited access. If I-269 is a “freight highway,” as its advocates argue, there is no need for the array of exits that punctuate the highway every mile or so.  The only reason for that many exits is to deliver up greenfields to developers and to once again lure people out of existing cities with the promise of cheaper costs of living (people still don’t regularly include the cost of gas in their calculations) and quicker commutes into the more urbanized parts of Shelby County to their work places.

User fees. In the past, the MPO (Metropolitan Planning Organization) has said that tolls can’t be put on interstate highways, but it’s done in other places.  In fact, there are now 3,175 miles of tolled highways in the interstate system.  If freight companies and developers want this highway, at least they should pay for it through user fees so that I-269 is paying its own way.  Perhaps, the toll could be used to develop a truly regional public transit system that delivers higher quality service to key job centers or the toll revenues could be used to rebuild existing infrastructure that needs repairs.  After all, we already have Highway 385 and if people want a higher level of service, they should pay for it.

It’s the Metro, Stupid

The project cost is now moving toward $1 billion, and backers now justify it with terms like smart growth, knowledge economy jobs, New Urbanism, and open space protection. They also claim that Memphis will benefit from new economic growth and development as a result of I-269, but they know this is not true.

These are difficult times for the Memphis metro – let’s say it again, metro. Unlike most other metro areas, the cancerous problems that threaten our economic health are regional in nature and not just the problems of the urban core. Unless we start to figure out how to avoid the negative impact of self-indulgent projects like I-269 and make investments that strengthen our entire region so that it is prepared for the fundamental restructuring of the economy that is well under way, we will prove that the road to hell is indeed paved with intentions that aren’t always so good.

In the end, it’s not great roads that will draw jobs to Memphis. It’s great quality of life, a great quality of place, a culture of creativity and entrepreneurship that will attract the talented people that in turn attract jobs to our community. The blind pursuit of more lanes and more roads without the fuller context for what makes Shelby County successful in the future produces an inadequate plan for transportation and replicates the same mistaken policies of the past.