Huntsville city officials are considering closing Cecil Ashburn Drive - a major thoroughfare in south Huntsville - to all traffic for more than a year in an effort to accelerate the widening project on the winding mountain road.

It would be a painful decision to make, Mayor Tommy Battle told the city council at Thursday's meeting, but it may be necessary.

The consideration to closing the road are because construction bids for the widening project came in about $10 million over budget, Shane Davis, director of the city's urban and economic development, told the council.

The business district on the Jones Valley end of Cecil Ashburn Drive would not be included in the closure.

The alternative to closing the road, Davis said, would be to keep one lane open and have traffic alternate usage of the lane under the supervision of construction workers. That would cause long traffic lines on both sides of Huntsville Mountain and lead to the project taking about 30 months to complete and being over budget.

"You hate, hate, hate to even look at this," Battle said. "But it's got to be done."

Cecil Ashburn is a 31/2-mile winding, two-lane road over Huntsville Mountain connecting Jones Valley with Hampton Cove. It's already over capacity with about 17,000 cars crossing the mountain each day, Davis said.

The project has been budgeted for $15 million but bids came in at about $25 million, Battle said.

Closing the road and allowing the contractor to work unimpeded by traffic could lead to the project being completed in as little as a year, Davis said.

The Cecil Ashburn has long been prominent in the city's road plans and was included in the Restore Our Roads project - which identified five city roadways that needed immediate attention. The city has earmarked $250 million in matching funds for Restore Our Roads.

"The reason it is painful and it is a tough decision is because it's a very important corridor to our community," Davis said. "If it wasn't painful, it probably would not rise to the level of being one of the top five projects to go spend $250 million we're spending on roads."

Councilwoman Jeannie Robinson voiced support for getting Cecil Ashburn completed as soon as possible, saying she has spoken with several Jones Valley church leaders concerned that their congregations will diminish with the closing of Cecil Ashburn and, subsequently, affect the church's income.

Robinson, whose district borders Cecil Ashburn Drive, also pointed to increasing traffic on Green Mountain Road that provides a roadway to south Huntsville from Owens Cross Roads south of Hampton Cove.

"I do like the idea of getting it done as quickly as possible," Robinson said. "We're already seeing cars from Owens Cross Roads coming up Green Mountain Road. That road is not designed to handle a lot of traffic and it's a dangerous road. So getting that project done as quickly as possible is going to be very important just to decrease the load on Green Mountain."

The closing of Cecil Ashburn will also increase traffic on Governors Drive over Monte Sano. Councilman Bill Kling floated the idea of possibly using reversible lanes on Governors to handle the increased traffic - using an outbound lane for inbound traffic in the mornings, then an inbound lane for outbound traffic in the afternoon.

"You need to start thinking about this because this is a tough decision to make but there's really not a decision to make about this," Battle told the council about the Cecil Ashburn project. "How we go about this is going to be the question mark."

Davis told the council that his department would come back with a recommendation for the council on how best to proceed within 10 days.