Has consideration been given to extend 565 in Huntsville to Interstates 22 and 59?

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Your reasoning is actually pretty sound from a transportation planning perspective.

The confusion is that there are two different “Corridor V” designations:

1. Appalachian Development Highway System Corridor V already exists. It runs generally from the Memphis area through northern Mississippi, the Shoals, Huntsville, and onward toward Chattanooga, mostly following US-72 and related highways. It is not planned to become a new interstate in its entirety, although pieces have been upgraded over the years.
2. Some long-range planning maps and unofficial concept maps have shown additional interstate-quality corridors in northern Alabama, which is probably what you saw.

A route connecting:

* I-22 near the Shoals
* Florence
* Decatur
* Huntsville
* then east to I-59 (or eventually Chattanooga)

would make a great deal of sense because it would:

* Connect Alabama’s three largest north Alabama economic centers.
* Relieve pressure on US-72.
* Provide a direct freight route between Memphis, Huntsville, and eastern Tennessee.
* Better connect major employers like aerospace, defense, and automotive manufacturing.

The biggest obstacle isn’t engineering, it’s funding. Building 150 to 200 miles of new interstate today would likely cost well over $10 billion and require decades of environmental review, right-of-way acquisition, and construction. Even projects with strong political support, like I-22, took roughly 40 years from authorization to completion.

So while I don’t know of any officially funded project matching the route you described, it is exactly the kind of corridor transportation planners often preserve on long-range maps. Those maps frequently identify corridors that may not be built for several decades, if ever.

I would be interested to see the map you found. If you can upload it, I can tell you whether it’s an official planning document or more of a conceptual transportation vision.

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I haven’t seen any plans to do this. They only recently restarted work on the northern belt-line around B’ham. I think it was 2014 when work first started on it. They worked for maybe a year or so and then work halted until just recently, like earlier this year.

The rate that interstates are constructed here in Alabama is just painful.

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