Birmingham’s Malfunction Junction cracks national top 100 most congested bottleneck list

Birmingham’s I-65 at I-20 “Malfunction Junction” was named the 80th most congested bottleneck for trucks by an American Transportation Research Institute study.

The annual study and subsequent list highlights the most congested bottlenecks for trucks in America.

Notoriously nicknamed Malfunction Junction since its opening in 1970, the I-65 at I-20 bottleneck is currently undergoing a massive$700 million bridge replacement project that is expected to be completed at the end of 2020.

Here are ALDOT’s questions and answers about the bridge replacement project 

The Study

The American Transportation Research Institute’s  2018 Top Truck Bottleneck List assesses the level of truck-oriented congestion at 300 locations on the national highway system.

The analysis, based on truck GPS data from more than 800,000 heavy duty trucks uses several customized software applications and analysis methods, along with terabytes of data from trucking operations to produce a congestion impact ranking for each location.  ATRI’s truck GPS data is used to support the FHWA-sponsored Freight Performance Measures initiative.

The locations detailed in this latest ATRI list represent the top 100 congested locations.

At least we are not Atlanta and Nashville

According to the study, Birmingham’s I-65 at I-20 is the only Alabama congested traffic area to crack the top 100 list.  Neighboring Atlanta had 7 highway bottlenecks, including 4 in the top 50. The state of Tennessee had 9 bottlenecks, primarily located in the Nashville metro area.

For the third straight year, Atlanta’s “Spaghetti Junction,” the intersection of Interstates 285 and 85 North is the most congested freight bottleneck in the country.