Construction can’t get underway fast enough on the $85 million U.S. 72 project from Providence Main to County Line Road for Huntsville metro motorists.

“It is without question what we hear the loudest (about) between the two municipalities and the county,” said Madison Mayor Paul Finley at the Huntsville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization meeting Wednesday. “We have to get it going.”

The project is one of 15 projects totaling more than $396 million currently underway or being designed in the Huntsville metro, according to Alabama Department of Transportation engineer Rod Ellis.

And it’s one that will take years to complete. Ellis told the MPO that the project is being done in phases, starting with the replacement of the bridge at Indian Creek at Providence and improvements on the approaches to the bridge.

Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle said last year the bridge replacement would be the most expensive part of the widening.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey announced $50 million in funding for the widening last year, but ALDOT officials at a public involvement meeting in Madison last May said total funding for the project has not been secured.