BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Just the Interstate 20/59 downtown driving experience, alone, can be enough.

Think of it as a game of dodgeball. On four wheels. At 70 mph. On both sides.

Coming from the west onto the bridge, 18-wheelers, cars, trucks and SUVs from Interstate 65 scud in closer, first on the left, then the right.

Some of them cut off other drivers while zipping to the exits on the right side of the interstate. Others cut off drivers while trying to avoid the exits.

"It's the place to exercise your best defensive skills," said Linda Holland, of Tuscaloosa, who navigates the stretch several times a week. "Anyone learning to drive, if you can learn to drive there, you can drive anywhere."

Aside from the driver-weaving, the elevated roadway's problems can be seen, heard and felt.

Modern buildings rise from the heart of the city and stop abruptly at a fence line several lanes thick with vehicles zooming either way. The constant rhythm of an average of 160,000 vehicles per day crossing concrete-and-steel sections stained with age.

The noise renders difficult any outdoor activities at the neighboring Birmingham Museum of Art's sculpture garden said Gail Andrews, the museum's R. Hugh Daniel director.

Walk under or anywhere near it and there are vibrations. The movements are enough that the art museum takes added precautions to protect some of its most delicate collections - a special temporary wax covering for its thousands of ceramic pieces, Andrews said.

Then look at the interstate bridge's surface. On July 4, a previously patched hole crumbled into reappearance, damaging cars and sending rays of sunlight through a gap a few feet wide in pavement carrying twice as many vehicles as it was designed to handle when built 40 years ago.

What was a $150 million Alabama Department of Transportation plan to simply replace the decks has grown -- at the initial urging of city and county leaders -- into

ALDOT officials say time and money make room for the only option: A better, safer way to get to and go through downtown Birmingham.

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But some are challenging what they see as a lack of inventiveness of ALDOT's design, and questioning the potential impact of its plan on the vitality of downtown and nearby neighborhoods.

Evolving proposal

Click here for a complete map of the proposed changes to I-20/59.

The main changes would be removing exits at 17th and 22nd streets, converting 11th Avenue North into the main access route for I-20/59 drivers going into downtown through a set of new overpasses.

The new 11th Avenue would run five lanes wide with a center turn lane, linking I-65 and the 31st Street interchange.

The replacement bridges would be built with segmented construction, which means the new bridge's pieces could be built off-site and brought in to be fastened to one another. They would be quieter as traffic passes over them, according to the design.

They also would be wider, with shoulders -- a luxury the current elevated roadway lacks.

The associated impacts have drawn the most heat, which has led to some adjustments.

The evolving proposal now would keep 24th and 28th streets open under the interstate, which Norwood residents said are two vital links with the rest of the city.

However, the 11th Avenue changes could have big traffic implications for the streets of Norwood, a neighborhood north of downtown said Ben Gallagher, with the neighborhood group.

Those include the planned removal of the 12th Avenue bridge, which angles across I-20/59 and links with Vanderbilt Road. ALDOT has said traffic counts do not justify keeping the bridge open.

Pedestrian and other safety concerns remain, which Gallagher said will contribute to the dark at night and generally uninviting "dead zone" beneath the I-20/59-Red Mountain Expressway interchange.

"My concern is [ALDOT] has only presented one real plan -- re-deck or a new style," Gallagher said. "Without such alternative plans, they leave themselves open to criticism."

ALDOT has stated that it won't close the 31st Street exit,

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Despite construction disruptions, the open exit means businesses can continue to operate with their same road connections -- the reason many of them moved to that area said Tom Yeilding, vice president of heavy equipment business CraneWorks, about a block off the interstate along 28th Street.

Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex's board

of the project with ALDOT. BJCC has questioned how the new pattern would impact expansion plans which include a possible dome.

"I think they have always taken the stance that the BJCC is one of the entities, among others, that is directly impacted by the project and has been open to discuss it with us as the project develops," BJCC Executive Director Tad Snider said of ALDOT.

Growing needs

ALDOT has said I-20/59 alterations are about moving vehicles safely and more efficiently through one of Alabama's busiest corridors.

Of the major roadways which box in Birmingham's central business district, the segment linking I-20/59 to Malfunction Junction and the Red Mountain Expressway handles the most on average -- 160,000 vehicles per day.

Sprawl is king in Birmingham. The metro area swells each day with outsiders from surrounding counties heading toward the central city.

The ever-spreading metro area bolsters what ALDOT considers one of the main ideas of I-20/59's revamp -- serving the growing number of vehicles crossing the bridges daily.

As a public entity, it should be ALDOT's job to put a check on that sprawl and begin planning projects to shape a less personal vehicle-dependent future, one group says.

They cite examples: San Francisco. Oakland. Washington, D.C. Toronto. Boston. Dallas. Seattle. All those cities have either rerouted interstate highways or have vocal, local movements to do so with a common theme: Viaducts are no longer cool.

There's no reason Birmingham shouldn't be on that list says Joseph Baker. Baker helped organize

, starting an online petition to get ALDOT to reconsider its plans for the downtown elevated interstate and pursue a more radical option such as rerouting the interstate altogether.

The

since it was launched about one month ago.

"Regardless of what happens with the interstate, we don't want viaducts anymore," Baker said. "We need something that adds value to Birmingham."

The group wants consideration of three options:

Rerouting the interstate using routes such as Finley Boulevard to carve a more direct path for interstate traffic away from downtown and toward the Arkadelphia Road junction;

Sinking the interstate below ground through downtown;

Or improving exits approaching downtown to better facilitate access, such as Interstate 65's exits south of I-20/59.

Based on what he says has happened in other cities, those changes would boost property values, facilitate business and activate what he said is Birmingham's latent potential -- attracting younger newcomers to a rising downtown.

When the freeway-building frenzy began in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s, the highways sliced through mainly lower-income areas.

Today, some planners are beginning to view other opportunities for the space they occupy said Rachel MacCleery, senior vice president of the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit research organization focused on real estate development and land use.

"In the best-case scenario, I think that the intent and often the actual outcome has been that cities are better connected," said MacCleery, speaking generally. Cities can become more walkable and livable, especially when those changes are paired with other improvements, such as transit, she said.

Baker said it's difficult to say which of those alternatives would be best, but they should have been considered by ALDOT when the department first began pondering replacement.

Each alternative has its pros and cons. Rerouting I-20/59 using Finley Boulevard as a guide would take the roadway roughly from the Tallapoosa Street bend through the Collegeville, North Birmingham and Acipco-Finley neighborhoods.

Sinking the interstate --

-- would be an expensive feat with engineering, geological and technical challenges.

But they're alternatives that could at least be considered, Baker maintains. And, he said, they're alternatives that are better than the current plan, which he described as "1960 with a little bit more flair."

"We know ALDOT. If they build that bridge, they're going to leave it there for the next 40 years," Baker said.

Andrews said some of ALDOT's revisions are promising. The brighter, quieter, concrete segmented design and fewer columns would improve pedestrian traffic between downtown and the entertainment venues on the other side -- the BJCC and the new Westin hotel, she said.

There could also be possibilities for adding lighting like what has been done at the

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However, Andrews said she wonders if there is enough time to do shorter-term repairs while studying possible relocation farther north.

"Given all of the reasons, it would be great to not have this division between this part of downtown and the other parts of the city," Andrews said.

Time running short

The bridges are safe for now, but time is an issue, according to ALDOT. Recent data from the department rates them as "functionally obsolete," or built to certain capacities that no longer match their use.

"We have not overemphasized this and we've tried not to under-emphasize this: This bridge has reached the end of its useful life," ALDOT Third Division Engineer Brian Davis said.

Today, the elevated interstates carry about twice their designed maximum amount of 80,000 vehicles, with a projected increase to more than three times their current designed capacity in the next 20 years.

ALDOT says that design of the past presents problems. The bridges have shallow decks which have taken a beating from at least 10 steel coil strikes since 1990, with the massive objects poking holes like the one which reopened on July 4.

The bridges are beyond patchwork fixes to extend their lives like the resurfacing sealant added about a dozen years ago, Davis said.

The "weaving" from on- and off-ramps has caused 640 crashes in the past four years, by the department's estimate.

Though most aren't serious, without shoulders or other room for emergency personnel, lanes often are blocked when those crashes occur which increases congestion.

Sinking the interstate was never an option for ALDOT. Dropping the roadway at the proper angle would require adjustments to nearby interchanges such as Malfunction Junction, Davis said.

Rerouting would be time-intensive and would require taking land. Replacement best serves the demand of a busy central business district which anchors a spreading metro area, Davis said.

The department stands by its general proposal, stating traffic flow will improve through downtown Birmingham because drivers who now use the awkward exits will leave I-20/59 sooner and be directed to the 11th Avenue.

As part of the planning process, ALDOT has had public meetings and public involvement meetings about the plan.

In the earliest phases, there were staff-level meetings involving the department, other interests and the city.

In July,

and their representatives to discuss the plan --

as the department cited an exception to the Alabama Open Meetings Act concerning city councils meeting with state officials not qualifying as a meeting.

After the meeting, council members said it appeared 11th Avenue could be adjusted for any BJCC plans, but no details were given. Birmingham Mayor William Bell could not be reached for comment.

There have been two meetings with the Norwood, Druid Hills and Fountain Heights neighborhoods north of the interstate and two meetings with business owners from the industrial area off 31st Street.

The stated purpose of the standard meetings is to gather input to incorporate into possible plan revisions.

Meetings were also part of the process for the intersection modifications now under way along U.S. 280, which did yield a few slight changes. Officials in Mountain Brook even went outside ALDOT's standard public involvement process and pleaded with Gov. Robert Bentley to reconsider major changes such as removal of a traffic signal at Mountain Brook Plaza.

Bentley gave the go-ahead for the project. The light was removed this month.

The I-20/59 project is still in the design phase. A near-final design will be revealed at a public hearing within the next few months with another public comment period to follow.

ALDOT officials have said they would like to begin the first part of construction -- starting with 11th Avenue -- in late 2014. The project would take about 2.5 years to complete.

Holland said from what she has heard of the proposal so far, the safety improvements would greatly help traffic flow.

However, she wonders about the impacts of losing the 17th Street exit, specifically. Local drivers may learn the changes but they may confuse out-of-town visitors, she said.

"I don't want to slight either the people who live here or the people who come to visit," Holland said. " I think there could be a balance for both sides."