City’s updated Major Street Plan approved by Planning Commission
Published on August 14, 2025
An update on the City of Huntsville’s Major Street Plan by the City’s Planning Department provided a glimpse at the future while highlighting recent road improvements and popular traffic thoroughfares.
In a recent presentation to the Planning Commission, City Planner James Vandiver gave an overview of the changes made to the Major Street Plan. The Planning Commission unanimously approved the updated Plan.
Including proposed routes of future roads in the Major Street Plan offers a guideline for future development to ensure the road corridors are preserved until rights-of-way can be obtained.
“The Major Street Plan categorizes major streets into functional classifications such as major and minor collectors and arterials,” Vandiver said. “It includes current alignments of proposed roads in addition to the existing roads in our city. This allows the City to plan for and preserve rights-of-way for future improvements.”
The updated Plan also expanded classifications to include the entire Huntsville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) area, which encompasses all of Madison County and portions of Limestone County.
“We want this Plan to be used regionally,” Vandiver said, “so Huntsville and its neighboring jurisdictions can work together to preserve the future highway corridors that will be vital to the entire region’s growth.”
The Major Street Plan, last updated in 2018, accounts for major road construction projects that have since been completed as well as the ongoing work on the Northern Bypass.
Expanded roads in recent years include Cecil Ashburn Drive, Greenbrier Parkway, and Zierdt Road, all of which were upgraded from collectors to arterial roadways in the latest update.
The street plan also includes updates from the MPO’s 2-5- Long-Range Transportation Plan, including the Northern Bypass extension from Memorial Parkway east to Winchester Road and U.S. 72; the Arsenal East Connector, which will parallel the eastern border of Redstone Arsenal; andadditional road corridors in Limestone County.
Roads that service the Huntsville-annexed areas of Morgan and Marshall Counties were also added to the Plan.