State Route 385 (SR 385) is the designation for two separate segments of

state highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a ...

in the Memphis Metropolitan Area in Shelby County in

West Tennessee West Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of the U.S. state of Tennessee that roughly comprises the western quarter of the state. The region includes 21 counties between the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers, delineated by state law. ...

, which with

Interstate 269 Interstate 269 (I-269) is a beltway around the city of Memphis, Tennessee, and its adjacent suburban areas in southwestern Tennessee and northern Mississippi, completed in October 2018. I-269 was planned and built to serve as an outer bypas ...

(I-269) forms a

semicircle In mathematics (and more specifically geometry), a semicircle is a one-dimensional locus of points that forms half of a circle. The full arc of a semicircle always measures 180° (equivalently, radians, or a half-turn). It has only one line o ...

around and through the Memphis suburbs. The route is constructed to Interstate

freeway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms i ...

standards with fully controlled access. The southern segment is notable for its almost-exclusive use of

single-point urban interchange A single-point urban interchange (SPUI, or ), also called a single-point interchange (SPI) or single-point diamond interchange (SPDI), is a type of highway interchange. The design was created in order to help move large volumes of traffic thr ...

s. Much of the eastern side of the loop was redesignated as I-269 by the

Tennessee Department of Transportation The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) is a multimodal agency with statewide responsibilities in roadways, aviation, public transit, waterways, and railroads. The mission of TDOT is to provide a safe and reliable transportation syste ...

in 2018. It is expected that the I-269 designation will be extended to the northern terminus of the highway, and the SR 385 designation truncated at I-269 in Collierville in the future.

History

Paul W. Barret Parkway

The first section of SR 385 built was the section of Paul W. Barret Parkway built between US 51 and SR 204 in Millington, completed around 1982. On September 25, 1998, a section of Paul Barret Parkway opened from SR 204 to US 70/79.

Bill Morris Parkway

The Bill Morris Parkway section of SR 385 was conceived in 1969. The project was one of six major freeway projects, referred to at the time as "Bicentennial Parkways", that was initiated by the passage of the Better Roads Program in 1986 by the Tennessee General Assembly. This segment was initially referred to as the "Nonconnah Parkway." The first contract, for the segment between I-240 and Ridgeway Road in East Memphis was awarded on August 3, 1990 at a cost of $44.7 million. This segment opened on December 24, 1993 to eastbound traffic and January 15, 1994 to westbound traffic. The route was extended to Riverdale Road and opened on December 22, 1995. The portion from Riverdale Road to Houston Levee Road opened on December 29, 1997. The extension to Byhalia Road opened in October 1999. The segment between Byhalia Road and US 72 was completed on November 21, 2000. Work began on the extension to SR 57 in June 2003, and this section opened on August 23, 2007.

Winfield Dunn Parkway and I-269

The segment of Interstate 269 between I-40 and what is now the eastern terminus of Bill Morris Parkway was originally signed as part of SR 385. The last section of this part opened on November 22, 2013. In 2018, portions of this segment were redesignated as I-269.

Exit list

References

External links

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LordSutch.com: Tennessee Highway 385Memphis Commercial Appeal Archives from 1990-2011
Interstate 69 385 Transportation in Memphis, Tennessee Freeways in Tennessee