By the late 1980s, it became clear that an additional vehicular crossing of the Black Warrior River would be necessary as both the U.S. Highway 43 and U.S. Highway 82 were approaching their designed carrying capacity. As a result, in 1991, the Metropolitan Planning Agency of West Alabama working with the Alabama Department of Transportation began a study of a bypass around the city. By 1992, Senator Richard Shelby and Alabama congressman Claude Harris were successful in securing $6.4 million in federal funds for engineering studies, land acquisition, and construction of the bypass through the Land Surface Transportation Act.