GOOD HOPE — Rock the South always brings a financial boost to Cullman, the annual country music festival’s host city. But the thousands of guests the event brings each year to the area don’t confine their local spending only to Cullman.

Spillover tourism dollars were on the minds of Good Hope leaders Monday, as the Good Hope City Council discussed the effect this year’s festival appears to have had on last month’s tax revenues. Though Good Hope’s sales tax yield from the month of July won’t be known until September, mayor Jerry Bartlett said he’s all but certain that the July 20-23 event generated a significant uptick in retail spending in Cullman County’s third-largest city.

“We won’t know officially what kind of bump we got in revenue until we get July’s numbers,” said Bartlett. “But we know it’s a bump, though. I’m really interested to see what those numbers will be.”

With two interstate exits conveniently close to the Rock the South venue, high-visibility service stations and restaurants in Good Hope did big business over the course of the concert’s three-day weekend. “The Pilot station was a really popular spot for people to stop; also the Waffle House and the Shell station,” said councilmember Susan Eller. “I think we should see some funds from that.”

Though both the Pilot Travel Center and the Waffle House lie just off the interstate on Alabama Highway 69, Bartlett believes commercial activity along the interchange would see an even greater tourism surge if the Alabama Department of Transportation should someday resolve to replace the state highway’s narrow, aging overpass bridge.

“It’s old; it’s outdated, and when traffic gets busy at that red light, it’s just a mess. I’m dying for news that it could be replaced,” he said, noting that the best opportunity for that to happen lies in the often-discussed proposal to widen the Interstate itself from four to six lanes.

Good Hope city planner and Alabama House Rep. Corey Harbison told the council the state isn’t likely to commit to such a sizable project unless it receives a sizable appropriation of federal transportation funds. He agreed, though, that the scope of such a project would likely require older overpass bridges — including the one at Highway 69 — to be refurbished or replaced in order to conform to current federal highway standards.

In a separate roads-related matter Monday, the council approved its 2024 transportation plan under the terms of the Rebuild Alabama Act. Good Hope’s annual allotment from the gas tax-funded state program is expected to reach approximately $29,000 in the coming year, with the tax’s incrementally stepped yearly increase having now been fully phased in at 10 cents per gallon of fuel sold statewide.