Quote:
Originally Posted by Randallg223
Please excuse me in advance, this post may be all over the place before I finish. I've been doing a lot of traveling in the southeast this summer and the one thing that jumps out in traveling to other cities similar in size to Mobile, is that our infrusture is way below par to those cities. Jackson, MS., Knoxville, TN., Little Rock, AR., and soon Baton Rouge, LA., all have interstate loops around there cities. The loop helps drive through traffic move faster and it opens the spur through town to be less crowded for local traffic. I've talked to tons of travelers and they all say the same thing, Interstate 10 (Wallace Tunnels) is one of the worst if not the worst bottle necks on there trip to Flordia. (That's a major problem in itself, passing through and not stopping) Nearly everyone who lives in Dallas, Memphis, St. Louis, Houston, Kansas City, Shreveport, etc.....have driven through Mobile on the way to Orlando. We in Mobile need to realize the interstate system was built for the purpose of moving people long distance's and as quickly as possible. We have to less selfish and realize a downtown I-10 bridge must be built. No more excuses. Many cities have high bridges in there downtown and it can be made to work, even enhance the area.
Now on Mobile's population decline, who cares. Most large MSA's have a very small city population. Atlanta, GA......city of Atlanta around 450,000, Atlanta MSA....... 8th largest in the Untied States. It's the region that matters. What hurts Mobile is the fact we are sandwich between two other fairly large MSA area's Pensacola and Gulfport/Biloxi. I often wonder how large Mobile would be if those two area's didn't exist.
Now for Downtown, we've got to get another larger cruise ship and then make is easy for those people to explore downtown. Also once there in downtown, there has to be things for them to do that is only unique to Mobile. For example, the Riverwalk in New Orleans. Seems like most of the stores have a Nawlin's flavor. Mobile needs to capture it's own style, and make Mobile the destination and not just the stop over on the way to Disney World or cruise to Mexico.
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Knoxville doesn't have an interstate loop around it. I lived in Pigeon Forge for a while. There's a spur that heads to their airport and their interstate goes straight through their downtown. 40 branches off and heads to Nashville... Their traffic is horrible sometimes and sprawl is ridiculous out west. Their downtown is trashed, the architecture is sad (Victorian... eww), and while they made some great efforts at renovating some parts of town there ain't much going on there. They have a concert series (or used to) one night a week in the Summer that was pretty cool. They do have a ton of natural stuff to do in their general area by virtue of their location, but we do as well.
There are plenty of reasons for us not to want an I-10 bridge downtown. If traffic bottlenecks then oh well. I see no reason for us to mortgage our economic future so that folk can shave a little time off their trip through.
I believe there is a Western bypass on the books, though in reality I-65 is already bypassing both downtown and midtown.
I like that Biloxi and Pensacola are nearby. Between the three cities there's a lot of history and opportunities for entertainment. We aren't the only city to grow, just the biggest of the three. When things go well for them we all do well.
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