For the purposes of this chapter, the following terms shall have the meanings respectively ascribed to them by this section:

(1) INTERSTATE HIGHWAY. Any highway now included or which shall hereafter be included as a part of the national system of interstate highways, selected by joint action of the State Department of Transportation and the United States Bureau of Public Roads.

(2) CONTROLLED ACCESS FACILITY. A highway or street included in the national system of interstate highways especially designed for through traffic and over, from or to which owners or occupants of abutting land or other persons have no right of easement or access from abutting properties. Such highways or streets may be parkways from which trucks, buses or other commercial vehicles shall be excluded or they may be freeways open to use by all customary forms of street and highway traffic.

It is the declared policy of this state to facilitate the flow of traffic and promote public safety by controlling access to highways included in the national system of interstate highways as selected by joint action of the State Department of Transportation and the United States Bureau of Public Roads.

The Director of Transportation, acting alone or in cooperation with counties, cities, towns or any federal, state or local agency or any other state having authority to participate in the construction and maintenance of highways, is authorized to plan, designate, establish, regulate, vacate, alter, improve, maintain and provide controlled access facilities for public use wherever such authority or authorities are of the opinion that traffic conditions, present or future, will justify such special facilities; provided, that in the case of designation or vacation, such designations or vacations must be approved by the Director of Transportation. Said authorities may regulate, restrict or prohibit the use of such controlled access facilities by the various classes of vehicles or traffic in a manner consistent with Section 23-3-1.

(a) The Director of Transportation is authorized to so design any controlled access facility and to so regulate, restrict or prohibit access as to best serve the traffic for which such facility is intended. In this connection, such highway authority is authorized to divide and separate any controlled access facility into separate roadways by the construction of raised curbing, central dividing sections or other physical separations or by designating such separate roadways by signs, markers, stripes and the proper lane for such traffic by appropriate signs, markers, stripes and other devices. No person shall have any right of ingress or egress to, from or across controlled access facilities to or from abutting lands, except such designated points at which access may be permitted or service roads provided, upon such terms and conditions as may be specified from time to time.

(b) Except to the extent authorized by law for toll roads, no automotive service station or other commercial establishment for serving motor vehicle users shall be constructed or located within the right-of-way of or on publicly owned or publicly leased land acquired or used for, or in connection with, the controlled access facility; provided, that this shall not limit the powers granted to the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources by Sections 9-2-9, 9-2-10, 9-2-100, 9-2-101, 9-2-103 through 9-2-108, 9-14-1 through 9-14-6 and 9-14-20 through 9-14-29, when those powers are exercised in accordance with the purposes of such provisions.

(a) For the purpose of this chapter, the highway authorities of the state, acting alone or through the counties, cities and towns, may acquire private or public property and property rights for controlled access facilities and service roads, including rights of access, air, view and light, by gift, devise, purchase or condemnation in the same manner as such authorities are now, or hereafter may be, authorized by law to acquire such property or property rights in connection with highways and streets within their respective jurisdiction. In connection with the acquisition of property or property rights for any controlled access facility, or portion thereof or service road in connection therewith, the state, county, city or town highway authority is hereby authorized, in its discretion, to acquire an entire lot, block or tract of land, even though such entire lot, block or tract of land is not immediately needed for the right-of-way proper; provided, that the authority is not granted to acquire property not immediately needed for the right-of-way proper unless the owner of such property shall consent thereto.

(b) In any event, in any case now or hereafter pending, when property is condemned for limited access highways and an appeal is taken by the state from a judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction and if the award of damages is affirmed on appeal by the Court of Civil Appeals or the Supreme Court of Alabama, then, in such event, the property owner shall be entitled to interest at six percent per annum on the amount of damages awarded from the date of the entry of the judgment awarding such damages.

The state or any of its subdivisions shall have authority to provide for the elimination of intersections at grade of controlled access facilities with existing state or county roads, and city or town streets by grade separation of service road or by closing off such roads and streets at the right-of-way boundary line of such controlled access facility. After the establishment of any controlled access facility, no highway or street which is not a part of said facility shall intersect the same at grade. No city or town street, county or state highway or other public way shall be opened into or connected with any such controlled access facility without the consent and previous approval of the Director of Transportation; provided, that the Director of Transportation may, whenever he determines that traffic is not thereby impaired, authorize the continued intersection at grade of lightly traveled entrances and minor public roads as ways of access to controlled access facilities in sparsely populated areas.

In connection with the development of any controlled access facility, the Director of Transportation is authorized to plan, designate, establish, use, regulate, alter, improve, maintain and vacate local service roads and streets or to designate as local service roads and streets any existing road or street if, in his opinion, such local service roads and streets are necessary or desirable. Such local service roads or streets shall be of appropriate design and shall be separated from the controlled access facility proper by means of all devices designated as necessary or desirable by the proper authority.

The Director of Transportation is authorized to enter into agreements with counties, cities and towns or the federal government respecting the financing, planning, establishment, improvement, maintenance, use, regulation or vacation of controlled access facilities or other public ways in their respective jurisdictions to facilitate the purposes of this chapter.