JOHNSON CITY -- Regional officials attending a road planning session Thursday were asked to be ready in August to rank road projects they want to see studied by state engineers.

One project suggested for study was the Erwin Highway (Tennesseee Rt. 107), between Tusculum and Erwin.

That message was passed by Chris Craig of the First Tennessee Development District, at a Rural Planning Organization (RPO) technical committee meeting.

Craig said RPO members will be asked at the next quarterly meeting of the organization to rank projects that regional county and municipal elected officials think deserve further study.

Members were given a tentative listing of projects recommended for study, as well as a map. They were told they could leave the list as it is, re-rank the items on it, or add projects.

The first priority on the suggested list was state Route 167 in Johnson County.

However, the second priority road on the suggested list of projects that deserve further study would start in Greene County.

That project would improve state Route 107 (the Erwin Highway) from the end of the Tusculum Bypass to the Washington County line.

The 107 project is divided into segments on the list, and includes segments that take 107 into Washington County and Unicoi County, to the Interstate 26 interchange in the town of Unicoi. The overall project is 18.65 miles, according to the list.

According to data on the list, the section from Florence Street to state Route 351 will reach its capacity by 2011, although other sections will not reach capacity until 2027 or even later.

Average daily traffic for the sections closest to Tusculum were shown to be between 7,000 and 10,000 vehicles per day, though the sections more distant from Greeneville were lower, in the 4,000 to 6,000 range.

Craig recommended that members study the list, and come back in August prepared to make recommendations and rankings.

Tennessee is mandated by the federal government to have a number of regional rural planning organizations (RPOs) statewide, as well as Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs).

The purpose of the plannning organizations is to provide input about local priorities to the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT).

Craig said there is good reason to add state Route 357 in Sullivan County, since the RPO voted in February to support it.

The first item on the agenda was an update on the status of the Route 357 extension, a planned four-lane highway from the intersection of U.S. 19E and U.S. 11E (near Bluff City) to the Tri-Cities Regional Airport.

The project is a priority for Sullivan and Carter counties, and for Elizabethton.

Ralph Comer, TDOT's assistant director for Long-Range Planning, said this project dates from 1994, when the state legislature passed a resolution recommending it, as did the counties.

Comer also noted that TDOT has had a significant funding reduction this year, lowering the likelihood that many projects will move ahead very soon.

Sullivan County Mayor Steve Godsey said he still would like to "get this project back on somebody's radar" at TDOT, since it affects so many counties and cities.

Godsey said the project is "not extremely critical," compared to other needs the RPO faces, but still is important.

Johnson City transportation planner Glenn Berry noted during an overview of that city's transportation efforts that the 357 project was part of the Quad Cities Beltway that was first announced in the 1980s by then-governor Lamar Alexander.

Several parts of that beltway have since been built, he noted.

Chris Jenkins, a TDOT project manager, reported on TDOT's work to improve U.S. Highway 321 (the Newport Highway) in Greene County.

He was careful to note that his report "has nothing to do with any new starts" on highway projects.

Jenkins said that, when Gov. Phil Bredesen took office, five sections of road projects related to upgrading U.S. Highway 321 and scheduled for construction became one of 15 projects across the state that were studied by the University of Tennessee's Transportation Research Center.

He said UT recommended a reassessment, and a lot of that work has been done since then by TDOT, working with local officials.

A transportation planning report was prepared by local officials as part of that effort, and last year the RPO voted to remove one section along state Route 93 (the Kingsport Highway) from the overall project.

The remaining intent was to create a northern bypass around U.S. Highway 11E, starting near Hal Henard Road and linking back to 11E east of town, at a location yet to be determined.

Jenkins said an environmental impact statement (EIS) is still needed to fulfill requirements that the UT study called for. He noted that 55 months is "the national average" for the time it takes to complete a major EIS.

For two years now, he said, the RPO has rated the portion of the 321 project from the Cocke County line to 11E as a high priority for funding, including the most recent vote this past February.

The first segment would "essentially widen U.S. 321 along the existing alignment," Jenkins said.

An initial environmental impact statement on that section found no significant impact, Jenkins said, but that study will be revisited.

The sections from the Nolichucky River to 11E will not follow the existing highway and will require a new EIS, he said.

He said TDOT would like to concentrate on the section closest to the Cocke County line, because the environmental studies on the other end may find something that triggers a need for an alignment shift.

Jenkins did not mention it, but a section of the same project in Cocke County, stopping at the Greene County line, is now under construction, and parts of it between the Greene County line and Newport are open to traffic.

Greene County Mayor Alan Broyles asked if plans call for retaining the existing and relatively new bridge over the river in the first section.

Jenkins said he did not know whether that level of detail has been worked out, but said "bridges would be part" of that section.

Jenkins showed the RPO members a map of these projects, on which Baileyton Road (state Route 172) was highlighted in yellow.

Asked about this, he said that Baileyton Road might be one of the projects for the RPO to consider recommending. He said "essentially a feasibility study" is all that has been done on that project by TDOT, to date.

Improving two-lane Baileyton Road has been a priority for Greeneville and Baileyton for some time, but it has not appeared on RPO rankings, to date.

Comer told the RPO members that recommendations from a major study of Interstates 40 and 81 in Tennessee are nearing completion by Parsons Brinckerhoff, a worldwide infrastructure consulting firm based in New York.

He said plans call for the study to be posted on the TDOT Web site when complete, for public comment.

The I-40-81 project is projected to cost between $7 billion and $8 billion, Comer said.