Sam Cooper Blvd History

[Mergingtraffic]

Anybody know about the Sam Cooper Blvd history?  I know it was supposed to be a part of I-40.  I see blank BGS's, so are those original signs? TN never used button copy?

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.1463481,-89.9050295,3a,16y,237.41h,103.91t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sr1Kns9CEq7Rix2B5f6VOBw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

[US71]

Anybody know about the Sam Cooper Blvd history?  I know it was supposed to be a part of I-40.  I see blank BGS's, so are those original signs? TN never used button copy?

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.1463481,-89.9050295,3a,16y,237.41h,103.91t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sr1Kns9CEq7Rix2B5f6VOBw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

To the best of my knowledge, TDOT never used button copy.

Sam Cooper was supposed to be I-40, but there were (I think) environmental concerns. Someone in Tennessee likely has more info.

[hbelkins]

Anybody know about the Sam Cooper Blvd history?  I know it was supposed to be a part of I-40.  I see blank BGS's, so are those original signs? TN never used button copy?

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.1463481,-89.9050295,3a,16y,237.41h,103.91t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sr1Kns9CEq7Rix2B5f6VOBw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

To the best of my knowledge, TDOT never used button copy.

Sam Cooper was supposed to be I-40, but there were (I think) environmental concerns. Someone in Tennessee likely has more info.

The AA Roads Facebook page had some photos and history on Sam Cooper Blvd. today.

[Revive 755]

Wondering if Memphis missed one of the Little Rock signs or installed a new one on SB Graham Street - doesn't look like this sign had a shield.

[sprjus4]

Wondering if Memphis missed one of the Little Rock signs or installed a new one on SB Graham Street - doesn't look like this sign had a shield.

It's a new install. If you look at old Street View, you can see it was a different sign before.

[Duke87]

Sam Cooper was supposed to be I-40, but there were (I think) environmental concerns. Someone in Tennessee likely has more info.

The lynchpin of the whole thing was the fact that construction of the freeway would have involved clearing a couple dozen acres of old growth forest in Overton Park. Old growth forests (that is, forests which have continuously been forests since before the arrival of Europeans in North America without ever having been clear cut and then allowed to regrow) are uncommon in most of the eastern US, so there tend to be strong desires from environmental groups to preserve them where they do exist. 

The history of I-40 in Memphis is especially important because it was the subject of a landmark supreme court case which set the precedent that the compliance of public works projects with applicable laws was subject to judicial review. In other words, every time anyone sues to try to stop a project they don't like... they have I-40 in Memphis to thank for the fact that they can do that.

Conversely, proponents of public works projects have I-40 in Memphis to thank for the fact that a government agency's judgment of whether a project complies with environmental law is not simply presumed correct, and they need to be prepared to defend their decision in court.

[MikeTheActuary]

My family moved to Memphis as the plans to put I-40 through Overton Park were in their death throes.  My father was in the Shelby County Office of Planning and Development, while my mother was a docent at the Overton Park Zoo.  I remember some tense dinner times....

Most of the BGSes on the freeway portion of Sam Cooper Blvd...I can't swear that they are originals, but they date back to at least 1978.

For some information of what might have been, a former co-worker of my father's has an extended blog post on the subject at http://cremedememph.blogspot.com/2016/04/overton-park-exwy.html   (Creme de Memph actually has quite a bit of good Memphis-area road lore.)

More recently, Overton Park has been the site of another car vs park brouhaha:  The zoo has grown and become so much more popular that they've had a serious parking problem.  There's been lawsuits and yard signs over plans to encroach upon designated open space to expand the parking area.  At this point, most of the fuss has died down, as a compromise was found...but park supporters remain militant to anything that would trade trees/grass for pavement in the park.

[The Ghostbuster]

Does anyone think Interstate 40 should have been built through Overton Park? Personally, I think freeways should have been built through parks only if there was no other alignment around the park, and only as deep-bored tunnels. Maybe Interstate 40 should have been proposed to travel north of Overton Park, such as along North Parkway, and Summer Avenue.

[MikeTheActuary]

Does anyone think Interstate 40 should have been built through Overton Park? Personally, I think freeways should have been built through parks only if there was no other alignment around the park, and only as deep-bored tunnels. Maybe Interstate 40 should have been proposed to travel north of Overton Park, such as along North Parkway, and Summer Avenue.

Should I-40 have been built inside what is now the I-40/I-240 loop?  In my opinion, "no, but..."  Given how Memphis has developed, and given the street network in place, local transportation needs are being met with the current alignment. However, I offer two caveats to this:

First, the two I-40/I-240 interchanges should have been reconfigured many years earlier than they actually were.  Under the current configuration, I-40 flows through the city reasonably well; it does get congested between Germantown parkway and the eastern I-40/I-240 interchange, and commute hours always generate additional volume...but before the interchanges were reconfigured, they generated some of the congestion, and more than one semi met a firey end navigating the ramps of the western I-40/I-240 interchange.

Second, one could ask a question of how much of Memphis' development pattern is the result of I-40 not having been completed through the city, and what might be different if it had.   Memphis is a little strange in being a medium-to-large city where "downtown" has moved.   When I moved to the city in the late 70's, downtown was downtown.  Since then, the major commercial/office hub has moved east, to near/inside the I-240/Poplar Avenue interchange.  Downtown Memphis faded...almost "dying" (two prominent skyscrapers, including the city's tallest, are vacant, and the Pyramid was as well), transforming into more of an upscale residential/entertainment district.

That shift of commerce is probably a big part of why I-40 works so well through the city; the mainline now bypasses the local business hubs.  I think it's anyone's guess as to how city development might have been different if the mainline had gone through the city.  Would "downtown" have moved to East Memphis?   Would some trendy residential neighborhoods instead be a blighted mix of residential and commercial?   I don't know.

Would running I-40 along North Parkway/Summer had made matters better?  Well, I think it would have been better than running through the park, but such an alignment still would have impacted sensitive areas of Overton Park, a semi-prestigious private college, a neighborhood home to affluent and locally-influential people...and North Parkway does function as a linear park in its own right.

The Creme de Memph post I linked to shows an "L&N alignment" option, which would have made use of a rail alignment that has since been replaced with a pedestrian/bike path.  That would probably have been a more palatable option had it been proposed up-front -- by the late 70's, that rail line saw only very limited use, and it was abandoned in the early-mid 80's.  But the points I raised above about potential development impacts would still stand...and I probably would have grown up elsewhere in Memphis, as my childhood home was very close to that alignment.

In general, I think that long-distance freeways are best left on the fringes of urban areas, with just a couple of exits to avoid inducing sprawl, and then local freeway spurs and loops can be left to support local transportation needs and provide connectivity to the long-distance system.   That's not quite what Memphis got...but I think what's in place now mostly works, as far as I-40 goes.

The bigger needs are the I-55/Riverside Drive interchange, and getting a third bridge to take the burden off the "old" (I-55) bridge.

[Henry]

Given that the original I-40 plans fell victim to the failed undertaking of urban freeway routes, I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, Sam Cooper Blvd could've been built as a 3di spur, and given a number like I-340 or something. But on another, it should've just been an arterial at-grade leading into downtown, stopping short of Overton Park, like the current alignment does, because I don't see any way of continuing west to the river without destroying some of the most important areas of the city, like the park and the neighborhoods that have become upscale.

[rte66man]

Mike, thanks for the info. Creme de Memph, that's priceless.  My Dad was from Memphis and we used to go to the Overton Park Zoo when I was younger (in the mid 60's). Good memories. I vaguely knew there were plans to route I40 through the park and remember thinking they surely could find an alternate route.

It was only in the last 10 years that the ghost ramps at the I40/I255 interchange were removed. I'll have to dig my photos out and get them posted. The interchange rebuild took out one of my Dad's childhood homes (on Waldron). Ah progress....

[Bobby5280]

The Memphis area has bigger fish to fry than trying to somehow connect the Sam Cooper Blvd freeway with the I-40/I-240 interchange near downtown. Deep bore tunnels might be a good idea, if available funding was infinite. The freeway gap is about 3 miles. The cost of such a tunnel project would easily run into the billions.

I think the freeway gap in the Memphis area in more urgent need of being filled is Lamar Ave between the end of the I-22/US-78 freeway and I-240. That's all mostly industrial area. It's near the airport and the very busy FedEx hub.

Spanning the gap between I-22 & I-240 might increase the traffic levels of the extremely obsolete and old I-55 bridge across the Mississippi. The bridge approach, the Crump Blvd cloverleaf with I-55, also just plain sucks. All of that needs to be re-built. Otherwise the old I-55 bridge will eventually need to be demolished. I-55 traffic would have to be shoe-horned into I-40 and the Hernando De Soto bridge. Even though that bridge has 6 lanes it's obsolete in other respects, like no shoulders. The remaining I-55 stub in SE Memphis could be converted into a surface street only locals would visit.

I think it's more likely Memphis would get new Mississippi River bridge crossings either well North or South of the City, possibly Western extensions at both ends of I-269 to turn it into a large regional beltway. I-55 could be re-routed along the SW quadrant of that beltway and avoid Memphis completely. There wouldn't be much if any neighborhood opposition to bridges being built in either location. The Southern one would probably benefit the Tunica area greatly.

Second, one could ask a question of how much of Memphis' development pattern is the result of I-40 not having been completed through the city, and what might be different if it had.   Memphis is a little strange in being a medium-to-large city where "downtown" has moved.   When I moved to the city in the late 70's, downtown was downtown.  Since then, the major commercial/office hub has moved east, to near/inside the I-240/Poplar Avenue interchange.  Downtown Memphis faded...almost "dying" (two prominent skyscrapers, including the city's tallest, are vacant, and the Pyramid was as well), transforming into more of an upscale residential/entertainment district.

The same questions about development that could have happened within Central Memphis could be asked about some other cities, such as Washington, DC. The busiest areas in the DC metro are out on the fringes of the Beltway and even outside the Beltway. If it wasn't for all the federal government operations and tourist sites within DC proper the district wouldn't have squat for business activity. It would be a lot like parts of Detroit.

The anti-freeway types talk a lot about fighting sprawl and how removing freeways will improve things. The truth is a whole lot of new commercial, office and residential development tends to gravitate to locations served by modern freeway corridors and connecting surface streets with high volume traffic capacities. They're not going to build where one has to drive through dozens of stop lights to get from point A to point B. The New Urbanists glamorize mass transit as the alternative to freeways, but I really wonder if those people actually use it. I got pretty sick and tired of losing 3 hours of the day using mass transit in New York City. The glamour of mass transit evaporates when you're freezing and cold standing at a bus stop or a train platform. People with money in NYC didn't ride the bus or subway. They rode in automobiles, either in a private car service or at worst a carpool.

[US71]

It's odd that Sam Cooper starts out  Interstate grade from I-40, then degrades into 4 lanes at-grade.

[sprjus4]

It's odd that Sam Cooper starts out  Interstate grade from I-40, then degrades into 4 lanes at-grade.

The at-grade portion was a more recently completed extension about 20 years ago. The freeway portion is original.

[MikeTheActuary]

It's odd that Sam Cooper starts out  Interstate grade from I-40, then degrades into 4 lanes at-grade.

The at-grade portion was a more recently completed extension about 20 years ago. The freeway portion is original.

Specifically, the freeway used to end, dumping traffic onto Broad Street, a neighborhood arterial, with most traffic turning north/south at Tillman to shift to either Summer, Walnut Grove, or Poplar, due to the railroad crossings on Broad further west.

The right of way where the non-freeway portion of SCB now exists just sat as vacant, rather trash-littered land for 4 decades.

There's still one additional major parcel sitting vacant from the I-40 corridor, immediately east of the western I-40/I-240 interchange.  Discussions are underway on what to do with it, made a bit more difficult because of the turnaround of the crosstown neighborhood currently underway.  An old Sears store/catalog distribution facility, which had been vacant for several years was recently remodeled and turned into a mixed-use development (commercial, a school, and...I forget whether they're apartments or condos).  The neighborhood has seen an uptick in real-estate interest as a result of that redevelopment.  Folks in the neighborhood want the parcel turned into a park, as the area is lacking in playgrounds/sports fields, and developers want to build some houses.

The quirk with that parcel is that the earthwork for I-40 had been done before the alignment was abandoned.  So, of course, there is neighborhood interest in what's going to happen with the 25-30 foot high artificial hill sitting there.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

It's odd that Sam Cooper starts out  Interstate grade from I-40, then degrades into 4 lanes at-grade.

The at-grade portion was a more recently completed extension about 20 years ago. The freeway portion is original.

Specifically, the freeway used to end, dumping traffic onto Broad Street, a neighborhood arterial, with most traffic turning north/south at Tillman to shift to either Summer, Walnut Grove, or Poplar, due to the railroad crossings on Broad further west.

The right of way where the non-freeway portion of SCB now exists just sat as vacant, rather trash-littered land for 4 decades.

To expand upon Mike's comments above; photo (below) that I took in 1999, near the (then) western end of Sam Cooper.

[mrsman]

It's interesting that this was never updated.  I believe this should have been a state route freeway, tn x40.  Also there is no good reason for Little Rock signage, it should be replaced with overton park.

I also agree that I 40 is fine as a northern loop.  It isn't that far away from this alignment.

Nexus 5X

[bwana39]

It's odd that Sam Cooper starts out  Interstate grade from I-40, then degrades into 4 lanes at-grade.

This road was built to be I-40. It was stopped by the locals due to its route through the park.  Think of it as an unfinished interstate, not as some local street made into a freeway.

[rlb2024]

A little more to the history -- there was a bus lane that traversed Overton Park on the south side of the zoo and came out on the east end of the park at East Parkway and Broad.  This was planned to be the original route of I-40.  I believe it's a bike route now.

Several alternatives were looked at -- at-grade, overhead, and cut-and-cover tunnel -- but all were eventually ruled out.  The situation was in the courts for almost 40 years before TDOT finally gave up in the late 1990s.  As a child in Memphis in the 1960s I thought it would have been cool to have the interstate go through the park.  All these years later I'm glad it's not there -- the Memphis Zoo is fabulous (one of only four in the US with giant pandas), and I enjoy going to the park during my infrequent trips back to my home town.

[MikeTheActuary]

A little more to the history -- there was a bus lane that traversed Overton Park on the south side of the zoo and came out on the east end of the park at East Parkway and Broad.  This was planned to be the original route of I-40.  I believe it's a bike route now.

Before it was a bus lane, it was a streetcar line.

I used to go to school across the street from, and grew up wihtin earshot of the zoo (pre-pandas).

[rte66man]

A little more to the history -- there was a bus lane that traversed Overton Park on the south side of the zoo and came out on the east end of the park at East Parkway and Broad.  This was planned to be the original route of I-40.  I believe it's a bike route now.

Before it was a bus lane, it was a streetcar line.

I used to go to school across the street from, and grew up wihtin earshot of the zoo (pre-pandas).

I had forgotten that. My Dad had a map of Memphis that showed streetcar lines. I'll dig it out one of these days......

[rlb2024]

A little more to the history -- there was a bus lane that traversed Overton Park on the south side of the zoo and came out on the east end of the park at East Parkway and Broad.  This was planned to be the original route of I-40.  I believe it's a bike route now.

Before it was a bus lane, it was a streetcar line.

I used to go to school across the street from, and grew up wihtin earshot of the zoo (pre-pandas).

I had forgotten that. My Dad had a map of Memphis that showed streetcar lines. I'll dig it out one of these days......

That would be cool to see.  The aerials on the Shelby County Register of Deeds website show the lane through the park in 1949 that did not look to be there in 1938.  My mom rode the streetcars all the time when she was young, but they all were gone from Memphis by the time I was born.

[MikeTheActuary]

One other thing about Sam Cooper Blvd.:  The pedestrian bridges occasionally feature odd sights.

https://www.reddit.com/r/memphis/comments/gdom7h/ok_which_one_of_you_was_this/