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The Case of I-40

Christine Kreyling
Free-lance Writer and Author, and the architecture and urban planning critic for the Nashville Scene

The scenario for the interstate that occurred in Edgehill played out in another African American neighbrhood, but this time there was controversy. When land acquisition for I-40 began in 1964, the total impact of the right-of-way on North Nashville became apparent. The chosen corridor passed through a major African American business district and near three black colleges. In 1967 black civic leaders learned that this route represented a modification of earlier plans for a more southerly course through a predominantly white area parallel to Charlotte Avenue. Defenders of the northern path alleged that it was necessary to change the route in order to have the desired number of interchanges for downtown with the federally required three miles between interchanges.

Agitation turned to outrage when the black community discovered that the final blessing for the northern route was given at a 1957 public hearing that was less than completely public. The notices for the hearing bore the wrong date, “were posted only in post offices in white neighborhoods, and were not distributed to the news media,” according to legal historians Allan Gates, et al. And “the transcript of the hearing, required by law to be taken, was very incomplete.” Charging that no proper hearing had been held, the citizens of North Nashville formed the I-40 Steering Committee and went to court. But the District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee held that “the 1957 corridor hearing, while a poor example of administrative procedure, was not legally inadequate.” And “the crippling effect of the highway on the community was not deemed enough to warrant an injunction.” Higher courts upheld this decision.

The effects were indeed crippling. The highway disrupted businesses, split up neighborhoods, dead-ended streets and radically altered the traffic flow. To this day the noise and air pollution remain a nuisance, as a recent public meeting on these problems demonstrates. But the case of I-40 in North Nashville illustrated one lesson: Public action against a major road project cannot wait until bids are about to be let and be successful. It would be several decades, with the fight over the Franklin Corridor, before Nashvillians learned it.