NEWPORT-Construction has finally started on a new Highway 411 in Cocke and Jefferson counties.

Mark Nagi, community relations officer with the Tennessee Department of Transportation in Knoxville, said work on the 3.81-mile project just recently began.

Charles Blaylock and Sons Inc. of Sevierville was awarded the $27.8 million contract for the section of road. The project, which runs from Grapevine Hollow Road to the four-lane section of Highway 25/70, is supposed to be completed by May of 2015.

Another major TDOT project now underway is the replacing of the Wolf Creek Bridge on Highway 25/70 over the French Broad River and Norfolk Southern Railway.

For more details, please see the latest edition of the Newport Plain Talk.