Memphis nearly complete with outer freeway loop

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Memphis to Byhalia nonstop: I-269 and I-22 now intersect

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The $76 million project stretches from Miss. 305 at Lewisburg to Miss. 302 east of Olive Branch, where the new highway connects with an existing I-269 segment that ties into Tenn. 385 at Collierville.

The all-freeway route from Byhalia to Downtown – I-22 to I-269 to Tenn. 385 to I-240 – is about a dozen miles farther than staying on I-22 into Memphis, where the freeway becomes the surface-street Lamar Avenue.

Lamar is the shorter route by far, but the street confronts drivers with a dozen stoplights before they reach I-240, as well as the congestion of countless tractor-trailers that serve the industrial Lamar Corridor.

Interstate 69 was conceived as a trade enhancement by linking Canada to Mexico through the U.S. heartland, from Michigan to Texas. The 1,660-mile corridor – now incomplete with various, disconnected segments – is to be routed through West Tennessee and Northwest Mississippi.

Mississippi is ahead of Tennessee in construction. The only segment of I-69 under construction in Tennessee is a 45-mile section from the Kentucky line to Dyersburg. State officials have said construction from Dyersburg to Memphis won't occur until more federal money is available.

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Andrew Hughes, the Mississippi Division director for the Federal Highway Administration, recalled the controversy in the 1990s when Tennessee and Memphis officials pushed for I-69 to be routed through the heart of Memphis, but Mississippi officials wanted I-69 routed around Memphis to touch more of North Mississippi.

A compromise was struck. The official I-69 route would cut through the heart of Memphis using sections of I-40, I-240 and I-55. But an I-269 bypass, or connector, around Memphis would be built using Tenn. 385 from Millington to Collierville and newly built roadway from Collierville to Hernando.

By next fall, Mississippi highway officials expect I-269's last leg – from Miss. 305 to I-55 at Hernando – to be completed.

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