A road-widening plan intended to ease the bottleneck of westbound traffic on U.S. 72 in Athens has been delayed.

Two years ago, Allen Teague with the Alabama Department of Transportation said the widening of the CSX overpass near South Jefferson Street was to begin in fiscal 2016 and take 1 to 1 ½ years to complete.

At this point, the project is in the design phase and included in ALDOT’s five-year transportation plan, Athens Public Works Director James Rich said Friday. Birmingham engineering company Sain Associates is designing the widening. Rich said he could not predict when the project will begin at this point.

Teague had said in September 2014 the overpass widening was scheduled for fiscal 2015 but was moved to fiscal 2016 due to state budget constraints. (Fiscal 2016 ran from Oct. 1, 2015, through Sept. 30, 2016.)

He said at the time widening the overpass, which is just east of South Jefferson Street, would have been postponed to fiscal 2016 anyway because CSX rejected ALDOT’S design for moving a retaining wall under the overpass. ALDOT resubmitted a revised design for the retaining wall.

The DOT makes a five-year transportation plan but that chart can change depending on how much money is available from state and federal sources, whether other road priorities arise and other factors.

The plan for Athens

The plan for Athens calls for widening the CSX overpass just east of Jefferson Street to accommodate two more lanes.

“The problem you have there now is that there is not very much running space for a left turn,” Teague said. “The southbound turn lane — which heads to the industrial park and the movie theater — can handle only a few vehicles. As a result, additional left-turning vehicles stack up in the regular traffic lane, forcing westbound vehicles to use one lane. By widening each side of 72 under the overpass, ALDOT can add a long southbound (left) turn lane and another lane (for northbound motorists turning onto Jefferson).”