Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth is renewing his call for I-65 widening from one end of Alabama to the other after a Labor Day trip from the Gulf Coast turned into a nine-hour drive home.
“When it takes me the same amount of time to drive from Orange Beach to Guntersville as it would to drive from Guntersville to Chicago, there is a problem,” Ainsworth wrote on Instagram.
“Nine hours is far too long to travel 2/3 of Alabama. We must widen I-65 from the Tennessee line to the Gulf of America.”
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The post is the latest in a years-long push from Ainsworth to add a third lane in each direction along the entirety of Alabama’s primary north-south interstate.
Ainsworth has repeatedly called the project one of Alabama’s most important infrastructure needs, arguing that congestion along I-65 hurts both motorists and commerce.
“Far too often, I-65 is essentially one long parking lot,” Ainsworth said in 2022. “It frustrates drivers, hurts commerce, and fails to serve the needs of taxpayers. It should have been done decades ago.”
He has since described statewide I-65 expansion as his “number one infrastructure project” and said last year that completing the full project would likely require about a decade and significant federal funding.
Some portions of the interstate are already being widened.
The Alabama Department of Transportation is currently adding a third lane along an approximately eight-mile stretch of I-65 through Shelby County between Calera and Alabaster. The broader project is scheduled to be fully open to traffic in 2028.
Other widening projects are also planned or underway along portions of the corridor, but no statewide project matching Ainsworth’s proposal to six-lane I-65 from Tennessee to the Gulf Coast has been approved.
For Ainsworth, his latest Labor Day experience was another reminder of why he believes that needs to change.
“Nine hours is far too long to travel 2/3 of Alabama,” he said.
Sawyer Knowles is a state and political reporter for Yellowhammer News. You may contact him at [email protected].
