Ceremony to celebrate official completion of last leg of State Route 840 on Nov. 2

Tennessee will officially open the final stretch of State Route 840 next week. The Tennessee Department of Transportation announced Thursday that a completion ceremony for the highway loop will be 11 am-2 pm Friday, Nov. 2, and the new road will officially open to traffic at 6 pm that day. The 78-mile highway connects Interstate 40 in Dickson County to I-24 and I-65 south of Nashville and ends back at I-40 in Wilson County. The completion ceremony will feature Gov. Bill Haslam and TDOT Commissioner John Schroer, as well as former governors Lamar Alexander, Don Sundquist and Winfield Dunn. State Route 840 was originally proposed as a southern and northern loop around Nashville during the Alexander administration. The northern loop has since been put on indefinite hold while court challenges and redesigns held up completion of the southern loop until the project has now been active for 26 years. Next week’s completion ceremony will be held on the newly completed section of the highway near the Carter’s Creek Pike interchange in Williamson County. In addition to the current and former state and federal officials, the Tennessee Army National Guard Band will perform. Anyone attending the ceremony must enter 840 from Franklin or points further east and take the westbound lanes to the event.