What Is the Worst Highway in Nashville?

February 19, 2026

I-24 is Nashville’s worst highway. It is not a close call.

Three of Tennessee’s five most congested interstate bottlenecks statewide occur on I-24 within Nashville, according to TDOT. The merge of I-24, I-40, and I-440 on the southeast side of downtown ranked 5th worst truck freight bottleneck in the entire United States in the 2025 American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) report, up from 10th in 2024. During afternoon peak hours on that stretch, average truck speeds fall below 20 mph. The broader I-24 corridor around Nashville appeared on the ATRI national bottleneck list multiple times, placing Nashville among only a handful of cities outside Atlanta and Houston with that level of freight congestion.

What Makes I-24 So Bad

I-24 enters Nashville from the southeast carrying commuters from Murfreesboro and Smyrna, then curves west through downtown before heading northwest toward Clarksville and the Kentucky state line. The problem is not any single section. It is the accumulation of them.

Coming from the southeast, the stretch between Bell Road and the I-440 interchange is a daily parking lot during morning and evening rush. The downtown interchange, where I-24 joins I-65 and runs a concurrency, concentrates traffic from two distinct commuter corridors into the same lanes. The merge with I-40 just south of downtown adds another traffic stream. Then comes the I-440 split, where drivers choosing to bypass downtown through the southern loop diverge from those continuing west on I-24. The sequence happens over a short distance with too many cars and too little road capacity.

TDOT has announced managed toll lanes on I-24 as a solution. Construction is expected to start in 2027. Current modeling suggests that without intervention, the travel time from Fesslers Lane to the Sam Ridley Parkway interchange could reach an hour in five to seven years. With toll lanes, the estimate is around 20 minutes on a reliable schedule.

The Rest of the Interstate Hierarchy

I-40 at I-65 (downtown west) ranked 16th worst truck bottleneck nationally in the same ATRI report. This is the point where east-west I-40 meets north-south I-65 on the western edge of downtown Nashville. Commuters heading into downtown from the west and from east Nashville converge here. The bottleneck here is tight physically: this is a heavily constructed interchange with limited room to maneuver.

I-65 south (toward Brentwood and Franklin) is the main artery for the city’s most densely populated suburban corridor and carries the highest daily volume of any Nashville highway by many estimates. It gets extremely congested during rush hours, particularly heading south in the evening and north in the morning. The I-65/I-440 interchange on the south side of downtown is another consistent pinch point.

I-65 at I-24 (north of downtown) ranked 53rd nationally for truck freight congestion. This interchange handles traffic from the northern suburbs converging with I-24 traffic from the Clarksville direction.

I-440 is technically a bypass but functions as a congested supplemental route rather than a relief valve. The westbound stretch in the afternoon is particularly slow. It is short, heavily used, and serves as Nashville’s only real option for getting from the south side to the east or west without driving through the downtown interchange.

The Corridor That Has Become Unexpectedly Difficult

Murfreesboro Pike and the surrounding arterial roads in the southeast are not interstates, but they carry enormous volume and have become increasingly problematic as Southeast Nashville, Antioch, and LaVergne have grown. The Hickory Hollow Parkway and Mount View Road intersection in Antioch is considered by many the most dangerous single intersection in Metro Nashville. The mayor’s office has cited Murfreesboro Pike specifically as a target for smart traffic signal upgrades that could save ten minutes per trip through the corridor.

What This Means in Practice

For anyone commuting into Nashville from the southeast (Murfreesboro, Smyrna, Antioch), I-24 is unavoidable, and the commute will get worse before it gets better. The toll lane construction scheduled for 2027 will help eventually, but it will also bring years of construction disruption before the lanes open.

For anyone entering downtown from the south (Brentwood, Franklin), I-65 is the path. I-440 occasionally offers a useful alternative for trips not requiring downtown entry, but it is rarely the time-saver it was designed to be.

If you are driving through Nashville rather than to it, trying to bypass downtown entirely via Briley Parkway (SR-155) to the north is often faster during peak hours than routing through any of the downtown interchanges. It adds distance but frequently costs less time.

Sources

  • American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) 2025 Top Truck Bottleneck List, via WKRN Nashville (April 2025): wkrn.com
  • ATRI 2025 Top Bottleneck Report, detailed rankings, via Yahoo News (April 2025): yahoo.com
  • Nashville Scene / Tennessee Tribune, ATRI 2024 bottleneck data: tntribune.com
  • TDOT comments on I-24 toll lanes and construction timeline, via WKRN (January 2025): wkrn.com
  • FleetOwner, ATRI 2025 Top Truck Bottleneck List analysis: fleetowner.com
  • NashvillePropertySearch, “The Busiest Roads and Highways in Nashville” (February 2025): nashvillespropertysearch.com
  • INRIX 2024 Traffic Scorecard, Nashville data: wsmv.com

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