WAFF.com: North Alabama News, Radar, Weather, Sports and Jobs-Stimulus money moving at slow pace to improve Madison roads

Work expanding major roadways in Madison is a top priority for city engineers and the driving force is an issue of safety.

When we asked city engineer, Gary Chynoweth to describe traffic in Madison, this was the response, "We have a lot of congestion, a lot of traffic on undersized roads and intersections are a particular problem."

He's behind mapping out a solution to solve it. Tackling the congestion problem on major roadways like Wall Triana is at the top of the list.

The City of Madison gave the green light to pour its share of stimulus money, all $780,000 thousand of it into expanding Wall Triana Highway into five lanes.

"The stimulus funds kind of guarantees that we will complete the project."

On any given day, more than 17,000 drivers travel along Wall Triana, a road built for 16,000 car capacity.

"We have grown so fast that our roadways are just over stretched and we are trying to improve that."

Growth that will only increase as more flock to our area through the base realignment and closure process.

For city engineer Chynoweth, the pressure is on to get Madison's roads up to par.

Work on expanding Wall Triana is expected to begin some time next year. Work can not begin until all design plans have been submitted to the State Transportation Department.

When it comes to the city of Huntsville, city leaders elected to use the majority of their cut for repaving roadways and overpass work on Memorial Parkway.