Joe Knight says he’s heard the naysayers when it comes to the Northern Beltline.

“They’re like, ‘Oh, it’s never going to be done,’” the District 4 Jefferson County commissioner said Tuesday. “Well, it’s gonna be done. Segments are. You can’t predict the future, but the plan is to finish that part they started and then next go to Highway 31 with four lanes, and we have the funding to do that.”

Commissioners moved to the agenda of Thursday’s commission meeting a resolution in support of the Birmingham Northern Beltline, which would complete the bypass interstate around Birmingham. Additionally, the hope of many is that the Northern Beltline would foster economic development similar to the development that has come along Interstate 459 in southern Jefferson County.

Knight said the road construction that is underway between U.S. 75 and U.S. 79 is a “great start.”

“That opens up the northeastern quadrant of the county. Then it’s up to ALDOT (Alabama Department of Transportation) whether they go to (Interstate) 59 first or if they go to (Interstate) 22 and go west. That’s not been decided yet.”

Knight said the completed Northern Beltline will impact the lives of residents.

“That gets traffic off Narrows Road and it gets traffic off Carson Road where a lot of 18-wheelers are coming through,” he said. “That’s a problem. That fixes that. It gives those people in the northeast quick access to emergency medical services. … Right now, you’re on a two-lane road, trying to get those people somewhere to be seen.”

Construction on the Northern Beltline, which was proposed in the 1960s and approved for federal funding in the 2000s, first began in 2014. 

 

Pinson Mayor’s Death and Bingo Halls

Later, Knight mentioned the recent death of Pinson Mayor Joe Cochran, who died from complications of ALS. Cochran had been in city government since joining the City Council in 2004 and becoming mayor in 2020.

The commissioner noted Cochran’s disdain for bingo halls, which are illegal in unincorporated Jefferson County.

“They’re not in his city,” Knight said. “He wouldn’t allow them in his city but they’re on the periphery of his city. It just (drove) him nuts, as it does most people who are law-abiding citizens who have a bingo parlor pop up down the street. It’s just never ending, it seems like.”

The commissioner compared efforts to close bingo halls with the Whac-A-Mole arcade game.

“It’s just mind baffling to me that when we shut them down that we can’t keep them closed down,” he said. “It’s a series of networks where they hide them in all of these LLCs and it’s very hard to determine who’s responsible and who actually owns the property. It’s not people selling their property and walking away from it, or selling their property or renting their property. It’s a network. We just can’t seem to keep whacking the mole.

“I understand there’s a lot of money in it and money goes where the money goes,” Knight continued. “You have patrons who go to those things and support them. They’ll (bingo halls will) move around and they (patrons) will find them.”