U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) is making the widening of Interstate 65 the first line item of his first budget as Governor, committing in his brand new “Back to Basics” playbook to a funded plan for three lanes in each direction from the Tennessee line to Mobile in year one.
“Three lane Interstate 65 first, then the rest,” the document states. “In year one, a funded plan and a budget to three lane Interstate 65 from the Tennessee line to Mobile. Then, every year after, we three lane more of our major interstates, in priority order. We’ll coordinate the work around peak traffic times so lanes stay open when people need them most, and bring every federal dollar we can win, working with President Trump.”
The plan sits at the top of the infrastructure chapter and inside the first bill on his first-session list, the state budgets, which the playbook says will be “balanced, priorities funded, including the plan to three lane Interstate 65.”
“We need to build more roads instead of just putting pavement down, and no more roads to nowhere,” Tuberville wrote.
Interstate 65 runs 366 miles through Alabama. When the Go Wide I-65 Coalition launched in 2024, roughly 80 of those miles had three or more lanes, leaving about 277 miles to widen after approved projects were subtracted.
Alabama Lt. Governor Will Ainsworth has carried the issue longer and louder than anyone in state government.
He began posting photos of standstill traffic under the hashtag #GoWide65 in 2022, pushed a Senate resolution in 2023 calling on ALDOT to study a statewide widening, and has described the interstate as the state’s main artery for commerce and its primary hurricane evacuation route off the Gulf Coast.
“Far too often, I-65 is essentially one long parking lot,” Ainsworth said in 2022.
RELATED: Ainsworth: Alabamians want an I-65 expansion – ‘It should have been done years ago’
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Ainsworth’s biggest recruit to the cause was President Donald Trump. At the Alabama Republican Party’s summer dinner in Montgomery in August 2023, Trump added the widening to his speech at Ainsworth’s suggestion and pledged federal backing.
“One of the first things that I will do to help the great people of Alabama is to approve a six-lane I-65 from Huntsville to Mobile,” Trump said.
Trump said he had asked Alabama’s congressional delegation what he could do for the state. “You can make a six-laner,” he said the delegation told him.
“I’m proud that President Trump is endorsing and supporting my plan to widen I-65,” Ainsworth said that night. “He pledged tonight that the first day he’s back in the White House he will put federal funding towards widening I-65 from Huntsville to Mobile to keep Alabama’s economy growing.”
U.S. Senator Katie Britt (R-Montgomery) pressed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on the commitment at a Senate Appropriations hearing in May 2025, telling him “there’s no way that project happens without a partnership with the federal government.”
Governor Kay Ivey’s Rebuild Alabama program has funded the first major stretch. ALDOT’s $143 million widening of eight miles between Alabaster and Calera is under construction in all three phases and scheduled to open in spring 2028.
“It’s a start, so let’s keep up the pressure and #gowide65,” Ainsworth said when the project was announced.
Ainsworth endorsed Tuberville for Governor last year. Earlier this month, back from a Labor Day trip home from the coast that took nine hours, he renewed the call once more: “We must widen I-65 from the Tennessee line to the Gulf of America.”
Tuberville’s playbook pairs the I-65 commitment with a new scoring system for every road and bridge project in the state, a public grade from 0 to 100 with job growth and safety weighted heaviest, a ten-year work plan and an annual list of what remains unfunded.
“If a project can’t show its value, it doesn’t get built,” Tuberville’s playbook states.
The campaign’s scoreboard lists the current status of I-65 as “some stretches” with three lanes each way, and the target as “a funded plan and budget for the whole road” by the end of year one.
Grayson Everett is the editor in chief of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on X @Grayson270
