Envisioning a new U.S. Highway 80

By Katie Nichols (Contact) | Selma Times-Journal

Published Monday, August 17, 2009

Driving down U.S. Highway 80 from Selma to Montgomery it is hard not to remember this is the footpath that moved the civil rights movement.

The point of Monday evening’s meeting at First Baptist Church, 709 Martin Luther King St., was to ensure that any improvement to the highway would not deter from the historic events, but bolster them.

“Our goal is to identify key sites along Highway 80 and to reflect what the community feels would be best to do to the land,” said Holden Spaht, of EDAW and AECOM. “There are historical landmarks, landscapes that haven’t changed since the march and views that are aesthetically pleasing. We want to conserve the land as a resource.”

EDAW is an international designing firm and is merging with AECOM, a global company that is involved in several operations for technical and management support services.

The firm began the protection plan for U.S. 80 Selma to Montgomery a five years ago when EDAW won a bid for the comprehensive plan.

“In 2004 we won a bid through the Alabama Historic Commission to look comprehensively at the corridor,” Liz Drake, project manager, said. “We will be wrapping up that in December. [Monday] we were trying to find results of what the surrounding community believes is the most important areas of the highway.”

A number of local and area people attended the program and voted on several sites along U.S. 80. The participants could deem a location very important, important or less important.

Many sites were obviously voted as very important — the Edmund Pettus Bridge and all three campsites of the march. However, people also rated points of interest like gateways to other cities — Lowndesboro, Whitehall and others. Also, the audience had to also consider which direction of travel was more important. For instance, was the Edmund Pettus Bridge going east more important than the bridge heading west?

The group also included vistas, a widespread view of the landscape. Some were pastures indicative of farmland or pecan groves while others were just scenic views pleasing to the eye.

The Bloody Sunday site scored lower than some people felt it should. The site is just over the bridge.

“I think this is probably the most important part of the highway,” Louretta Wimberly said. “This is were the people were attacked that day. I think it was voted only important because nothing has ever been done on that site, but it is the most important.”

Other people agreed saying this point was the most historically significant and needed the most attention.

The meetings will continue to discuss the future of the corridor. On Tuesday there will be a meeting at the Interpretive Center in Lowndes and another meeting Thursday in Montgomery at Dexter Avenue Church.

“We will be back in Selma into the fall to discuss the results of the meetings this week,” Drake said. “We will have a model and show what other groups felt was important. The voting [Monday] went along with what we felt it would be. Naturally the historic sites were viewed to be most important and they should be.”

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