September 27th Update

Henley Street Bridge Information - TDOT Update

The City of Knoxville will host an informational meeting on the upcoming closure and reconstruction of the Henley Street Bridge from 5-7 p.m., Tuesday, September 28 in the City County Building's Large Assembly Room.

Representatives from the Tennessee Department of Transportation will be on hand to discuss some of the details of the project which is slated to begin in early 2011.

TDOT will close the 80-year-old bridge for up to 36 months while the structure is dismantled, down to the arches, and rebuilt. The plans include expanding the deck from the current five-lane configuration to its maximum width of six lanes while keeping the sidewalks at their current width.

TDOT has agreed to the City of Knoxville's request to utilize the sixth lane for bicycle traffic.

During the September 28, meeting TDOT officials will describe steps being taken to reroute traffic via James White Parkway, the South Knoxville Bridge and Moody Avenue. Chapman Highway, between the Tennessee River and Moody Avenue, will remain open for traffic during the closure period.

For more information about the project, please click here.

April 16th Update

PUBLIC MEETING ANNOUNCMENT

Monday, April 19, 2010
6:00 pm
University Visitors Center
(former Faculty Club)
2704 Kingston Pike

The purpose of this meeting will be to inform the public of the Cumberland Avenue Corridor Project status, present the concept designs for the streetscape and to receive comments and suggestions. The City has received a notice to proceed with detail design from TDOT and therefore has met the requirements for Environmental Clearance for the Streetscape Project. There will be an overview presentation about the project history and updates on the urban design plan for the corridor.

Please plan to attend.

The Press Release for this meeting is available at:

http://www.cityofknoxville.org/Press_Releases/Content/2010/0413a.asp

Also there are stories about the project from the local media in the Links sections to the right of this page.

As always thanks for your interest, have a great weekend and hope to see you on Monday!

March 26th Update

The City of Knoxville is pleased to announce that we have received official notice to proceed from TDOT with the next phase of the Cumberland Avenue Corridor Project! The project has received its Environmental Clearance from the state and city staff and our project consultants will be hosting a public meeting to finalize the concept design which will determine the course for detail design.

The public meeting regarding Cumberland Avenue Corridor Streetscape Concepts will be held on Monday, April 19th at 6:00pm in the University of Tennessee's Visitors' Center, 2704 Kingston Pike. Parking is available on site. Please make plans to attend, provide your input, and invite others who might be interested in this project. A press release regarding the meeting will be forthcoming and will be posted on the City's website, http://www.cityofknoxville.org/.

As always if you have any questions or comments regarding the project, please feel free to contact me at awallace@cityofknoxville.org.

February 19th Update

Fort Sanders Stakeholder Quarterly Meeting Information
Date: March 4, 2010
Time: 3:00 pm
Location: Ballroom B, UT's Visitors' Center, 2704 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN

Please make plans to attend this meeting updating last year's stakeholder meetings. An agenda will be posted next week here on the blog. Also please note the location is different from the previous meetings; parking is available on site at UT's Visitors' Center.

Also this week, City staff received more good news from the Tennessee Department of Transportation regarding the Cumberland Avenue Streetscape Project. The Environmental Division has reviewed the proposed project for compliance with environmental laws and regulations. The project as proposed will not directly, indirectly or cumulatively have any significant environmental impacts. This assessment has been forwarded to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) for their review and approval. The next step for the streetscape project, once reviewed and approved by FHWA, will be the detailed design of the street. We will keep you posted on this process and let you know about any public meetings for the detail design. I would like to thank our consultants, City Engineering and TDOT for all their hard work and efforts to compile the necessary information for the Programmatic Categorical Exclusion for this project.

Thanks for your continued interest and have a great weekend.

February 12th Update

Good news!

The city of Knoxville has recently been informed that the Tennessee Department of Transporation (TDOT) has selected the Ft. Sanders Sidewalk Improvement request for Fiscal Year 2010 Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) Funds. This decision was based on a recommendation from the Knoxville Regional Transporation Planning Organization (TPO). The funds will be used to repair, replace and install sidewalks in the northwest portion of the neighborhood. I would like to thank TDOT, the TPO, and City Engineering for their assistance and guidance with this project. The grant amount is $250,000 and is programmed to be fully funded by TDOT. More information will be forthcoming as this project gets developed with the state.

Have a great weekend! Happy Valentine's Day, Happy President's Day, and thank you for your continued interest in all things that connect to Cumberland Avenue!

December 7th Update

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Ft. Sanders Long Range Planning Meeting last Thursday. We are editing the Recommendations and Implementation Strategies to reflect the comments from the full committee. The recommendations should be available to post soon.

Up coming meetings of interest for the Ft. Sanders Community:

* CITY TO PROVIDE OVERVIEW OF HENLEY STREET BRIDGE PROJECT
Tuesday, Dec. 8, 6:00PM
Graystone Presbyterian Church
139 Woodlawn Pike, in South Knoxville.

John Hunter, chief traffic engineer for the City of Knoxville, will provide an overview of the project. Officials of the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) will be on hand to answer questions.

The five-lane bridge, built in 1930, is due for extensive repairs. The entire deck has to be replaced, along with the supports leading from the arches to the deck. No date has been established for the work.

* PROPOSED UT SUBSTATION PUBLIC MEETING
Thursday, December 10, 6-7 p.m.
Knoxville Redeemer Church (Chapel/Multipurpose Room)
1642 Highland Avenue

The purpose of this meeting will be to discuss the proposed construction of an electric substation at the corner of Dale Avenue and N. Seventeenth Street.

Please contact KUB at 594-7531 if you have questions about the meeting.

November 13th Update

Thanks to everyone who attended meetings this week on the Cumberland Ave. Corridor Project and last week's Fort Sanders Long Range Planning Subcommitee meetings. It has been a busy month!

Minutes from the November 5th Fort Sanders LRP Subcommittee meetings are being compiled and should be posted next week. The focus of the the Quality of Life Subcommittee was to work on compiling recommendations for the full committee and the Long Range Physical Planning group discussed in detail recommendations for improvements to traffic circulation within the neighborhood for all modes of traffic. The final meeting for this process will be Thursday, December 3rd.

The Cumberland Ave. Advisory Board met on Wednesday, November 11th and discussed the status of the Streetscape Project and Urban Design Plan; a copy of the agenda packet will be available in the Links section. TDOT has indicated that their review of the Environmental Clearance request is close to complete; the next step is to submit the document to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) for final review. City staff provided an summary of the Traffic Memos provided by our consultants, Gresham Smith & Partners and a summary of the Form Based Code for Cumberland.

A public meeting was held on Thursday, November 12th to present the draft Form Based Code for review. A copy of this presentation will be available in the Links section and on the Cumberland Ave. Corridor Project webpage (www.cityofknoxville.org/cumberland). A draft of the code will also be published to the City's website in the next few days. Please send any comments or questions regarding the draft code to me at awallace@cityofknoxville.org.
Thank you!

October 16th Update

The notes from the October 1st Ft. Sanders Long Range Planning Committee meeting are posted in the Links section of this page. In follow up to the discussion at this meeting, City Staff, UT Representatives and Knoxville Area Transit (KAT) met to discuss concerns regarding the signal at Metron Center Way. A brief summary of that meeting is available in the notes. Additionally, the notes from the September 3rd Quality of Life Subcommittee meeting are also posted and were handed out at the last full commitee meeting.

City staff attended the Transportation Planning Organizations Technical Committee meeting on Tuesday, October 13th. A couple of items of interest were presented at that meeting: 1) The Federal Government's recission of funds for the Federal Highway Administration on October 1st will have a local impact because of the reduction in TDOT and TPO funding. A specific impact to Ft. Sanders is that the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) funding that was requested for sidewalks and bus shelters in the neighborhood will not be available this fiscal year. 2) Some reduction to the Surface Transportation Program (STP) funds will occur, but project funding is decided at the local level. If you have any questions regarding this information feel free to contact me at awallace@cityofknoxville.org.

Finally, a City Council Workshop was held last night to discuss the Downtown Wayfinding Project. This project is anticipated to be the starting point for future wayfinding efforts in Knoxville's core neighborhoods. The consultants, Merje Design, out of Philadelphia have started design development based on several stakeholder meetings and two public meetings. This information was presented to Council and the public last night. The consensus from the workshop was that the general design concepts were reflective of downtown Knoxville and that a few relatively minor tweaks would have the design in great shape. If you'd like more information on this project please visit: www.cityofknoxville.org/wayfinding.

September 18th Update

Good afternoon. This has been a busy week behind the scenes. The city has been working with our consultants to meet additional requests from TDOT for our Environmental Clearance document. We have also been working on the proposed Cumberland Ave. Form Code and have a meeting with various deparments next week to review the proposed code and plan the public review process.

Also the link on the right hand side provides the minutes from the September 3 Physical Land Use Subcommittee from the Ft. Sanders Long Range Planning process. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me at awallace@cityofknoxville.org. The next full committee meeting is scheduled for 3:00pm at the Knoxville Museum of Art. Please note the location change.

Thanks and have a great weekend. Go Vols!

Streetscape Update

The Cumberland Avenue Corridor Plan is composed of two major parts: 1) The Streetscape Plan, and 2) The Urban Design Plan. The city has been awarded a contract from the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) to implement the Streetscape Plan which proposes improvements to facilities for all modes of transportation. The general concept of the plan is to change Cumberland Ave. from a 4 lane cross section with two eastbound and two westbound lanes to a 3 lane cross section with one eastbound, one westbound, and a center two-way left turn lane. This concept will provide wider sidewalks, shared travel lanes for bikes and vehicles, as well as defined space for transit stops. As a part of this project the overhead utility lines will be moved to provide a cleaner, more aesthetically appealing environment with street trees and other amenities. For more information on the plan, please see the link on the right.

Update: The city’s consultants Vaughn & Melton and S&ME have submitted the required “Historical Resources Survey Report” for the projected impacts of the Streetscape Project to TDOT. This information is part of the requirements for the project to receive its Environmental Clearance from TDOT to be able to proceed with detailed design work. The document submitted on July 24th, was revised by S&ME to meet requests for additional information from TDOT. We don’t know the timeline for review of this document, status of review will be updated on this blog.

Additionally, two requests have been made requesting funding for projects that will support the Streetscape Project. The first was submitted to the Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) requesting Congestion Mitigation and Air Quailty (CMAQ) funds to improve sidewalk connections within the Fort Sanders neighborhood and also to provide bus shelters within the area to support the existing transit lines (KAT buses, trolleys, T Link, etc). That application was submitted on July 10th. The second request was made on July 17th for TDOT fiscal year 2009 Safety Funds which would be used to improve the intersections of 17th Street and Clinch Ave. and 17th and White Ave. These requests are currently being reviewed by the appropriate agencies. Status of review will be updated on this blog.

Image Credit: Bruce Mccamish,
www.amazingaerialphotography.com