Pellissippi Parkway

Pellissippi Parkway begins at SR 162's northern terminus at a directional interchange with SR 62 (Oak Ridge Highway) at the east end of the village of Solway on the east side of the Clinch River from Oak Ridge. There is no direct access from westbound SR 62 to the parkway. Pellissippi Parkway heads southeast as a limited-access four-lane divided highway. The highway crosses Beaver Creek and has a four-ramp partial cloverleaf interchange with Hardin Valley Road, which leads to Pellissippi State Community College. Pellissippi Parkway has another partial cloverleaf interchange with SR 131 (Lovell Road).

The highway becomes a freeway at its last at-grade intersection just northwest of its partial cloverleaf interchange with Dutchtown Road. There, Pellissippi Parkway enters the western end of the city of Knoxville, expands to six lanes, and is paralleled on both sides by frontage roads south to the parkway's interchange with I-40 and I-75, where SR 162's northern segment ends and I-140 begins. That interchange is a cloverleaf interchange with a flyover ramp from southbound SR 162 toward eastbound I-40 and northbound I-75, which head concurrently toward downtown Knoxville.[1]

Pellissippi Parkway continues south through a partial cloverleaf interchange with Kingston Pike, which carries US 11 and US 70. South of Kingston Pike, the freeway passes along a sliver of the city of Knoxville that follows the freeway to the Tennessee River. Pellissippi Parkway crosses a Norfolk Southern Railway line and the Sinking Creek arm of Fort Loudon Lake ahead of its diamond interchange with Westland Drive. The freeway curves east within its diamond interchange with SR 332 (Northshore Drive); the interchange includes a ramp from the eastbound parkway to Town Center Boulevard. Pellissippi Parkway veers south onto a peninsula within a bend of the Tennessee River, then curves east again to cross the river, which forms the Knox–Blount county line.

At the east side of the river, Pellissippi Parkway enters the city of Alcoa, within which the highway remains to its eastern end. The freeway has a diamond interchange with SR 333 (Topside Road) and crosses a CSX rail line. Pellissippi Parkway curves southeast through a cloverleaf interchange with US 129 (Alcoa Highway), where I-140 ends and the southern segment of SR 162 begins. The freeway has an southbound-only exit and northbound-only entrance from and to Cusick Road and crosses a Norfolk Southern rail line before reaching its terminus at a half-diamond interchange at SR 33 (Old Knoxville Highway) in Eagleton Village.[1]

Originally, the Pellissippi Parkway was proposed to extend 4.4 miles (7.1 km) past its eastern terminus in Blount County with SR 33 (Old Knoxville Highway) to US 321/SR 73 East (Lamar Alexander Parkway) near Walland, which would also include an exit at US 411.[16] Since the 1990s, this proposal has been met with much controversy and opposition from locals, and as a result has undergone a multiple delays and court reviews since.[17] In 1999 TDOT conducted an environmemtal assessment to evaluate alternatives to the project, and in April 2002, the Federal Highway Administration issued a finding that the project would have "no significant impact", which would have allowed TDOT to proceed with the project.[17] On June 7, 2002, a group of local citizens, organized as the Citizens Against the Pellissippi Parkway Extension (CAPPE), filed a lawsuit, arguing that TDOT had not complied with the provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act requiring a legitimate environmental impact statement. On July 17, 2002, a U.S. District Court judge issued an injunction against TDOT, prohibiting them from proceeding with construction activities.[18] In late August 2004, this injunction was modified to allow TDOT to prepare a new environmental impact statement, and on September 27, 2004, TDOT announced plans to do so.[19] The draft environmental impact statement was approved on April 14, 2010.[9] On July 27, 2013, TDOT announced that the alignment for the extension, which includes a westward shift of the southern end from the original plan, had been chosen.[16] The final environmental statement was approved on September 10, 2015. The FHWA approved the route for the extension on August 31, 2017.[18]

The Pellissippi Parkway, alongside other landmarks throughout East Tennessee, derives its name from an older name for the Clinch River. The name "Pelisipi River" was present on older maps with such variant spellings as "Pelisippi" and "Pellissippi", and the variant form "Fiume Pelissipi".[20] In fact, the Mitchell Map (1755–1757) labels a tributary of the "Pelisipi River" as "Clinch's River". The word "Pellissippi" was long said to have been the Cherokees' name for the river and was purported to mean "winding waters" in the Cherokee language.[21] However, research completed in 2017 instead concludes that the Miami-Illinois name Mosopeleacipi ("river of the Mosopelea" tribe) was first applied to what is now called the Ohio River. Shortened in the Shawnee language to pelewa thiipi, spelewathiipi or peleewa thiipiiki, the name evolved through other variant forms such as "Polesipi", "Peleson", "Pele Sipi" and "Pere Sipi", and eventually stabilized to the "Pelisipi/Pelisippi/Pellissippi" form; these names were variously applied back and forth between the Ohio and Clinch rivers.[22][23]