On January 11, 2005, the Tennessee Department of Transportation's (TDOT) Resource Team held its second community meeting to present preliminary alternatives for designing the intersection of Hall of Fame Drive (HOF) and Broadway.  Teresa Estes (Gresham Smith & Partners of Nashville) led the meeting, which was attended by representatives of the City of Knoxville (including Bob Whetsel, (Director of Public Service), Glenn Malone ( TDOT project manager, now retired), Travis Brickey (TDOT PR), Charlie Graves (TDOT engineer), City Councilman Rob Frost, and Jeff Welch (Transportation Planning Organization  Director for the Knoxville region). The alternatives were designed based on input from the September 9, 2004 community meeting about this project.

For those unfamiliar with this project, please see the previous story here.  Construction on HOF is expected to commence July 1, 2005 and last until the end of 2006.  It is being constructed before the widening of I-40 through downtown, in order to give displaced local traffic a place to go while the interstate is closed between 2008 and 2009 for 14 months.  During this time, I-40 will be off limits between the Cherry St. exit to the east, and the Broadway/James White exits to the west.  

Before Teresa presented the alternatives, the subject of the limited scope of TDOT's responsibility came up, as in the November 2004 meeting.  TDOT claims that the study of the impact of the new intersection extends no further than 1/4 mile from the intersection.  Teresa emphasized that it is up to the local community to contact their "local planning commission" about traffic issues outside this 1/4-mile radius, and these are "not TDOT's concern."  

However, confusion arose when reference was made to the fact that TDOT's design criteria for the intersection are taking into account a "long range plan" to turn Broadway into a major arterial route (a "Broadway Corridor") between downtown and the area around Old North Knoxville (ONK).  This would likely include widening Broadway, she said. Therefore, the intersection will be designed as if 16,530 cars/day will be traveling down Broadway to downtown in 2009, reflecting an annual growth of 2 percent over 10 years.  Any TDOT project must have a 20-year life to be viable, Teresa emphasized.  Many at the meeting took issue with these traffic projections, saying they were wildly optimistic, and wondered out loud if TDOT actually took the effort to communicate with the local planning commission.

In response, Jeff Welch (Knoxville TPO) stated that a central sector traffic plan was completed two years ago, and verified that Broadway is slated to become a "major economic development corridor."  However, he said care will be taken to not destroy the character of the area between ONK and downtown, similar to how Sequoyah Hills has improved Kingston Pike without impacting the historical and tree-lined character there.

Finally, Travis Brickey (TDOT) told several people privately after the meeting that our community needs to lobby TDOT to build a pedestrian bridge over HOF, to connect Luttrell Street from ONK to Fourth & Gill.  Although this possibility was not mentioned as part of Teresa's formal presentation, TDOT owns this right-of-way which would make them the only entity that could make such a modification.  And the most logical time to do this would be when HOF is under construction.

The Alternatives

Alternatives 1-5 were presented at the meeting.  TDOT presented the estimated time to construct, ease of constructability, costs, and various impacts of each alternative, which are summarized here.  For a narrative describing each of the alternatives, see the previous story on this website.  

Alternatives 3a and 3b were eliminated from further analysis at the request of the community, and the rest of the alternatives will be carried forward for further study and refinement.  

All of the remaining alternatives show a continuous fly-on ramp from HOF to northbound lanes of Broadway, and a continuous fly-off from southbound traffic to HOF, similar to what is present now.  Several people at the meeting said this would not fix the problem that pedestrians and bicyclists have with using this area of Broadway.  Curiously, the alternatives presented at the meeting were different than what were presented at the November 2004 meeting, which showed westbound traffic HOF "teeing" into Broadway.  A tee intersection would allow pedestrians to activate a crossing light to stop cars coming off of HOF.  This would be more difficult with a fly-on ramp, as presented.  TDOT explained that this change was made to prevent huge backups in traffic trying to get on Broadway.  TDOT took into account the comments from the audience to design an intersection that would allow pedestrians and bicyclists to cross at this intersection.

November 2004 version, which "tees" into Broadway and allows a chance to stop all traffic from HOF	January 2005 version, where northbound traffic travels non-stop to Broadway

Audience members also asked TDOT to consider totally eliminating the southbound fly-off ramp from Broadway, and having eastbound HOF traffic originate from this tee intersection, as well.  Glenn Malone (TDOT) said that this could introduce a bottleneck by trying to send a projected 23,000 cars per day southbound on Broadway through a left turn onto eastbound HOF.  He warned that drivers would then try to find alternate routes through residential streets in ONK and Fourth & Gill, in order to avoid this congested intersection.  TDOT and its consultants are going to analyze this further for the next community meeting.

TDOT and Gresham Smith & Partners will hold another meeting in about two months, but a time has not been scheduled, yet.  Watch this website for further announcements.