Seniors take a day trip to the Athens Buc-ee’s on one of the Limestone County Council on Aging Buses. Huntsville Brownsferry Road, newly upgraded with additional travel lanes, services the interstate exit at the Athens Buc-ee's location.

Work to improve the stretch of roadway linking Interstate 65 to the Tanner area has crossed a major milestone, after the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) updated the project’s status earlier this week.

The $13.3 million project, undertaken to convert Huntsville Brownsferry Road (SR-304) from two to five lanes between I-65 and U.S. Highway 31, saw the opening, on June 24, of all five lanes of traffic in Limestone County connecting the Tanner community with Exit 347 at I-65.

Anchored by the Buc-ee’s travel center, the interstate exit services an increasingly busy access corridor between I-65 and Tanner, with Calhoun Community College close by. This week’s opening of the additional travel lanes alongside a center turning lane, said ALDOT, “marks substantial completion of the project.”

A Rebuild Alabama project, work along Huntsville Brownsferry Road also has “included construction of two bridges at Swan Creek and a four-barrel bridge culvert at Old Schoolhouse Branch,” noted ALDOT. A related earlier project, separately costing $2.8 million, also widened the interstate overpass at the 347 exit. Combined with the widening work between Tanner and I-65, “[t]he state has invested a total of more than $16 million in improving the corridor connecting to Greenbriar Parkway,” ALDOT said.

At its intersection with Highway 31 in Tanner, Huntsville Brownsferry Road has also received upgraded traffic signals, as well as additional turn lanes and turn lane extensions. ALDOT cautions that work along the project’s length isn’t entirely finished and that drivers should still treat the area as a construction zone.
“Temporary lane closures may be necessary for some final work items,” the department explained, “including installation of permanent striping and markers.”