Black Belt, West Alabama mayors gather Tuesday to show support of Highway 43 corridor expansion

A dozen Black Belt and West Alabama mayors gathered in Thomasville on Tuesday to voice their support for the Highway 43 Corridor. 

Ground was broken for the 80-mile expansion of the highway from Mobile to the Tuscaloosa County line in November 2021. Eight miles are under construction around Linden, marking the beginning of a $760 million project that West Alabama officials said has been promised by every Alabama governor for seven decades. 

But Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth sent shockwaves through West Alabama and the Black Belt last month when he said the money promised to the Highway 43 corridor would be better spent adding lanes to I-65. Ainsworth said on social media that the state should “be fixing the problems with our most heavily trafficked roadway before starting an entirely new project like the West Alabama Corridor, which will cost roughly $1 billion before completion and have a fraction of the travelers.”

Ainsworth will come to Thomasville Sept. 6 to meet with Thomasville Mayor Sheldon Day. The day before that meeting, Day hosted Tuesday’s meeting that drew more than a dozen mayors from Fayette to Linden to Mobile to express their support for the project. 

Day said it’s West Alabama’s and the Black Belt’s turn. 

“When Gov. Ivy announced this initiative, she wasn’t trying to bring us to the front of the table and lord over everyone,” Day said. “She was finally giving us a seat at the table. We don’t want to drive the bus. We just want to be on the bus. And for the last 50 or 60 years, we have not been on the bus.” 

That message was repeated by Linden Mayor Gwen Rogers. “Rural Alabama has been overlooked,” Rogers said. “We hope this highway brings additional retail stores to town, that it brings affordable housing and cuts down on drive time” for Linden residents who work in other cities. 

“If we prepare today and do the right things to make sure this happens, we will lift up this part of Alabama,” Day said. 

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Day said that industries won’t consider moving to a town that is more than 20 minutes away from a four-lane highway. The 43 corridor will put many Black Belt towns within that range. 

Mobile Sandy Stimpson said that the 43 corridor will open commerce from the expanding port of Mobile to points north and help reduce traffic on I-65. Stimpson said that by 2025 the Port of Mobile will be able to accommodate larger container ships. 

“Eventually, it all ends up on a truck,” Stimpson said, so that means more congestion on I-65. “The quickest way” to reduce congestion on I-65 “is to provide two ‘outs’ coming out of Mobile” – I-65 and a four-lane Highway 43, Stimpson said. 

Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox said that the corridor will give the automobile industry and the coal industry quicker access to the Port of Mobile. “What’s good for Tuscaloosa is good for the Black Belt and good for the entire state,” Maddox said. The wider 43 corridor will also provide an additional evacuation route in the event of a hurricane, he said. 

State Sen. Robert Stewart said he is confident the Highway 43 corridor will happen. “I have no worries,” Stewart said. “But we have to fight the mindset that it’s either-or. We can do both (the I-65 expansion and the Highway 43 Corridor).” 

Stewart said even though the corridor is west of Dallas County, the project “is very close,” so the area could see construction jobs and some industrial growth. 

“We’re sick and tired of our No. 1 export being our young people” who leave the region to find good jobs, Day said.