Displaying items by tag: unfinished foothills parkway
Feds reopen plans for long-delayed 9-mile Foothills Parkway segment from Wears Valley to Gatlinburg near Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Plans for new parkway segment were hatched long ago; project would also include improvements to Wears Valley park entrance
Just a few years after the “Missing Link” of the Foothills Parkway was finally finished following decades-long delays, the National Park Service now has its sights set on constructing a new 10-mile section of parkway on the Tennessee side of Great Smoky Mountains National Park that would extend from Wears Valley to the heavily traveled Gatlinburg Spur.
The leg of the roadway has long been included in a plan for full completion of the parkway. About 30 miles have been completed from Tallassee, Tennessee to Wears Valley. This section would extend from the current parkway terminus in Wears Valley to the Gatlinburg Spur near Pigeon Forge.
Park officials said in a press release announcing the opening of the project’s public comment period that the unfinished section is the only stretch of incomplete, congressionally approved roadway in the U.S.