Foothills Parkway

State Route 386 and 396 in Tennessee

State Route 386 in Tennessee

SR-386
Get started Goodlettsville
End Gallatin
Length 17 mi
Length 26 km
Route
  • → Nashville / Louisville1 Conference Drive
  • 2 Center Point Road
  • 3 Hendersonville
  • 6 Hendersonville
  • 7 Indian Lake Boulevard
  • 8 Saundersville Road
  • 9 Gallatin
  • 12 Big Station Camp Boulevard
  • 14 Green Lea Boulevard
  • Gallatin

State Route 836 or SR-386 is a state route and freeway in the U.S. state of Tennessee. The highway connects the suburbs northeast of Nashville with Interstate 65 and is 16 miles long.

Travel directions

At Goodlettsville, SR-386 exits from Interstate 65, the highway from Nashville to Louisville. The highway has 2×2 lanes and runs parallel to US 31. It passes the suburb of Hendersonville before ending in Gallatin on the bypass of that place.

History

The highway was originally constructed in the 1980s as a bypass of Hendersonville, it opened in two phases in 1983 and 1987. In 1991 this bypass was connected to I-65. The extension from Hendersonville to Gallatin opened in late 2007.

  • See BABYINGER for a list of Tennessee public libraries by county.

Opening history

from nasty length date
US 31E New Shackle Island Road 5 km 00-00-1983
New Shackle Island Road US 31E Connector 5 km 00-00-1987
I-65 US 31E 5 km 00-00-1991
US 31E Connector Gallatin 8 km 00-00-2007

Traffic intensities

The intensities go down from 62,000 at Goodlettsville to 54,000 at Hendersonville and 17,000 at Gallatin.

State Route 396 in Tennessee

SR-396
Get started Spring Hill
End I-65
Length 5 mi
Length 8 km
Route
Spring HillKedron Road

Port Royal Road

State Route 396 is a state route and freeway in the U.S. state of Tennessee. The road forms a short branch off Interstate 65 at Spring Hill, south of Nashville. The road is 8 kilometers long.

Travel directions

The highway, also known as the Saturn Parkway, is a five-mile, 2×2 lane route with three grade separations plus an interchange with Interstate 65, the highway from Birmingham to Nashville. The highway has a fairly wide median strip and can be widened to 2×3 lanes. The highway primarily opens up a General Motors factory.

History

The highway is believed to have opened in about 1990, when Spring Hill Manufacturing, the factory of Saturn (later General Motors), also opened. The highway is also named after this, the Saturn Parkway.

Traffic intensities

In 2011, 23,700 vehicles drove daily on State Route 396.

Foothills Parkway

The Foothills Parkway is a parkway in the US state of Tennessee. The road forms a route through the Great Smoky Mountains south of Knoxville, and when completed, will be 110 miles long.

Travel directions

The Foothills Parkway, when completed, is to form an east-west route through the Great Smoky Mountains in eastern Tennessee, from US 129 at Chilhowee to Interstate 40 at Hartford.

The western section is 17 miles long and runs from the Little Tennessee River valley at Chilhowee to Walland. The road mostly runs over the slope or ridge of the westernmost ridge of the Great Smoky Mountains, a forested area. The road varies in height from 300 to 800 meters and mostly leads over the ridge. There are frequent parking lots with views to the west and east. The road is often solitary from the other road network, which is often crossed at a grade-separated level and to which there is an occasional indirect connection. The highest point of the road is 866 meters.

The middle section from Walland to Wears Valley is a route through the woods and over the slopes of Bates Mountain. The highest point of the road is approximately 760 meters, the road partly runs on viaducts over the slopes.

The eastern part is still largely missing between Wears Valley and Cosby. The section from Cosby to Interstate 40 north of Hartford is still in use and runs through wooded areas at an elevation of approximately 700 meters.

History

Originally the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was to include the portion where the Foothills Parkway now runs, but the boundary was later moved south, leaving the road outside the national park. After it became clear that the Blue Ridge Parkway would not pass through Tennessee, lobbies were launched to build a tourist road in the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. In 1944, the construction of a 114-kilometre route was approved.

The Tennessee Highway Department then went on to purchase the right-of-way, a slow process that lasted until the late 1950s. Construction of the Foothills Parkway began in 1960. Progress on the Foothills Parkway has been modest since the 1970s. The problems were particularly great on segment 8E-F, which has been under construction for years, but where 4 kilometers were still missing that runs on viaducts. Due to budget cuts and low priority, this part was only partially constructed from the 1980s. On November 10, 2018, the missing section between Walland and Wears Valley was opened, enabling use of a 26-kilometer section.

The original plans for the Foothill Parkway envisioned 8 segments;

  • 8A: US 321 (now I-40) to Cosby (9 km), completed in the late 1960s
  • 8B: Cosby to Pittman Center (23 km), unfinished
  • 8C: Pittman Center to US 441 at Gatlinburg (15 km), unfinished
  • 8D: US 441 at Gatlinburg to Wears Valley (16 km), unfinished
  • 8E: Wears Valley to Carr Creek (16 km), completed in 2018
  • 8F: Carr Creek to Walland (10 km), completed in the 1980s, open in 2018
  • 8G: Walland to Look Rock (16 km), completed in 1966
  • 8H: Look Rook to Chilhowee (11 km), completed in 1966

Future

The construction of the section between Cosby and Wears Valley is very uncertain and could take years.

Foothills Parkway