By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

Pelham leaders have agreed to partner with Hoover and the Alabama Department of Transportation to add more lanes to Valleydale Road between U.S. 31 and Riverchase Parkway, and said the project could move forward as early as next year.

During its Jan. 21 meeting, the Pelham City Council voted to support the widening project, which is being sponsored by the city of Hoover. Once completed, the project will widen Valleydale Road to five lanes – four travel lanes and one center turn lane – between U.S. 31 and Riverchase Parkway.

According to Pelham City Engineer Jesse Jowers, ALDOT’s plan calls for widening a current two-lane stretch of Valleydale Road between the Hoover Public Safety Center and Riverchase Parkway.

Although Hoover is sponsoring the widening project, Pelham had to approve the resolution supporting the project for the widening project to move forward, as a portion of Valleydale Road is in Pelham.

Pelham City Council President Rick Hayes said Pelham will only be responsible for funding the electricity to power a traffic signal at the intersection of Valleydale Road and Business Center Drive.

“That is a simple thing for us to do, and I think it makes a lot of sense,” Hayes said of the agreement. “I think it will be good for the whole region.”

“The (widening) project stops in front of the Hoover Public Safety Facility, but will tie into the Highway 261 widening project, which includes intersection improvements to Highway 31 eastward to this project,” Jowers wrote in a letter to council members. “According to ALDOT, the (widening) project is tentatively scheduled for construction letting in 2015, and the Highway 261 project is tentatively scheduled for construction letting in 2016.”

Pelham City Council President Rick Hayes previously said dates on the projects are “still not clearly laid out,” and said the Valleydale Road and Shelby County 261 projects are all “interrelated.”