CUMBERLAND AVENUE
EXCAVATION WORK:
DAYTIME LANE
SHIFT, NIGHTTIME DETOUR
Starting after Labor Day, a City contractor will be
excavating and removing buried pre-World War II trolley tracks from the center
of Cumberland Avenue – a task that will require a 10-day around-the-clock lane
shift plus overnight closures of the westbound lane of Cumberland for nine
consecutive nights.
Southern Constructors Inc. will begin the trolley track
removal at midnight on Tuesday, Sept. 6. The job is scheduled to be completed
by the end of Thursday, Sept. 15.
Along a three-block section of Cumberland, between 19th
and 22nd streets, the westbound lane of traffic will be shifted. No
left turns will be allowed through the three-block excavation zone Sept. 6-15,
and this includes intersecting side streets with Cumberland.
Nightly, between midnight and 6 a.m., the westbound lane
between 19th and 22nd streets will be closed entirely.
Flag personnel will be dispatched as needed to maintain access to businesses
that are open after midnight.
The eastbound traffic lane of Cumberland Avenue will remain
open at all times during the project. Westbound commuters will shift to the new
through lane during day and evening hours, but between midnight and 6 a.m.,
westbound commuters will be detoured off Cumberland to 19th Street,
to Clinch Avenue and to 22nd Street before reconnecting with
Cumberland.
“The decision to close a section of westbound Cumberland at
night wasn’t made lightly,” said Anne Wallace, the City’s Deputy Director of
Redevelopment. “However, safety is key – both to motorists and to the
construction crew. It was necessary to eliminate conflicts between heavy
machinery and vehicles for this phase.”
The excavation was scheduled to take advantage of a 10-day
period with no University of Tennessee home football games.
Wallace cautioned that the night-time work will be noisy at
times. But doing the work 24/7 rather than stopping the excavation work at
night will cut by more than half the time needed to finish the project, in
addition to increasing motorist safety.
The excavation work also will play a small role in the Battle at Cumberland Avenue Scavenger Hunt. The four-day Sept. 6-9 event pits registered teams against one another in posting creative social media photos tied to the Cumberland Avenue revitalization and, most importantly, Big Orange fervor along Cumberland Avenue leading up to the Sept. 10 Battle at Bristol between the Vols and Hokies.
The details of the scavenger hunt will remain under wraps
until it kicks off on Sept. 6, but several of the contest criteria award points
to teams that safely incorporate images of the City’s $17 million
investment in the Cumberland Avenue reconstruction. (So imagine a photo of a
team singing “Rocky Top” while holding a specialty food item, standing on a new
section of decorative Cumberland brick sidewalk, with a Southern Constructors
dump truck in the background. That would be worth a lot of Battle at Cumberland
Avenue points!)
To get started, scavenger hunt teams must register at www.CumberlandConnect.com.
The City’s
reconstruction of Cumberland Avenue, begun with Knoxville Utilities Board
infrastructure improvements in April 2015, is scheduled to be completed by August 2017; the work is past the halfway mark.
The existing four-lane Cumberland between 22nd and 17th
streets is being remade into a safer, more pedestrian-friendly corridor with a
three-lane cross section, a raised median and left-turn lanes at intersections.
An earlier phase of work on the western end of Cumberland focused on improving
traffic flow between the Alcoa Highway ramps and 22nd Street; that
phase finished at the end of 2015, on time and under budget.
More information is available at www.CumberlandConnect.com, on the
Cumberland Connect Facebook page, facebook.com/CumberlandConnect,
and on the Cumberland Connect phone app. Or text VFL
to 313131 to get text messages on the most current traffic updates.
FIRST HOME GAME - TRAFFIC SUCCESS!
Thanks to everyone who planned ahead for the first home game on a Thursday since 1936. It was great to see that traffic was flowing next to all that Orange and White (both barrels and fans!). Here's a video of the drive around 2:00PM on game day - about 5 hours before kickoff (notice the new street lights that are being installed on the right side of the video)! Go Big Orange!
REMINDER: Cumberland Avenue Merchants Association (CAMA) - Monthly Meeting
Date: Wednesday, September 7 (during the Battle at Cumberland!)
Time: 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Location: Copper Cellar, 1807 Cumberland Avenue
What: The merchants and other interested stakeholders meet to discuss items of interest or concern and get updates on the City's Cumberland Avenue Corridor Project.
Parking: Available parking is located at Copper Cellar.
