Foothills Parkway

The Foothills Parkway is a national parkway which, if completed, will traverse the foothills of the northern Great Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee, located in the Southeastern United States. The 71-mile (114 km) parkway will ideally connect U.S. Route 129 along the Little Tennessee River in the west with Interstate 40 along the Pigeon River in the east, passing through parts of Blount County, Sevier County, and Cocke County. Large sections of the parkway will cross a series of high ridges running roughly parallel to the Tennessee boundary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and will offer unobstructed views of the Great Smokies to the south and the Tennessee Valley to the north.

The oldest unfinished highway project in Tennessee, the Foothills Parkway project has been continuously stalled by funding difficulties since Congress authorized its construction in 1944. As of 2010, only 1/3 of the parkway had been completed and opened to vehicular traffic. The longest open section consists of a 16.5-mile (26.6 km) leg traversing the western flank of Chilhowee Mountain in Blount County, connecting US-129 along the Chilhowee Lake impoundment of the Little Tennessee River with U.S. Route 321 in the town of Walland. The other open section is a 6-mile (9.7 km) stretch traversing Green Mountain in Cocke County, connecting US-321 in Cosby with Interstate 40 in the Pigeon River valley. The Gatlinburg Bypass, which traverses the eastern flank of Cove Mountain between Pigeon Forge and the national park, connecting to the Great Smoky Mountains Parkway at each end, is also considered part of the parkway.

The parkway is managed by the National Park Service as part of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and is not a separate unit of the national park system.