City to Review Policy on Traffic Calming

City to Review Policy on Traffic Calming

The City of Knoxville this fall will take a fresh look at the way it responds to citizen
concerns about speeding in residential neighborhoods.

As part of this review of its traffic calming policy, the city’s Engineering Department
and Office of Neighborhoods have scheduled five public meetings to hear
citizens’ views on the best ways to control speeding on residential streets.

The meetings will be held during September and October in different parts of town so that
all interested citizens have a chance to participate. Each meeting will include
the same introductory information and opportunity for public input. See details
below.

Citizens’ ideas, suggestions, concerns and opinions will also be gathered via a traffic
calming web site that will be launched by early September. The site will
include a list of various types of physical traffic calming devices (such as
speed humps), links to numerous traffic calming resources across the World Wide
Web, and a survey of traffic calming policies of peer cities in the region.

“Speeding on residential streets is among the top issues identified in every survey of
concerns in Knoxville’s neighborhoods,” noted David Massey, neighborhood
coordinator. “Due to limited resources, it is also one of the most challenging
problems for any municipality to address. But we felt it was time to take
another look to make sure we are doing everything we can to grapple with this
persistent problem.”

Utilizing the public input, budget constraints and other factors, city staff will formulate a
draft policy and publish it for citizen review and a follow-up public meeting
in the first quarter of 2014. Members of City Council will also be asked to
weigh in before a final policy is presented for City Council’s endorsement. It
is anticipated that implementation of the new policy would begin during the
second quarter of next year.

Currently the city’s traffic calming measures include police surveillance and ticketing of
speeders on eligible streets on a rotating basis throughout the year, lowering
of the residential speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph in some cases, and
installation of new speed limit signs and rumble strips at the entrance to
neighborhoods. Any city neighborhood organization or Knoxville resident can
call 311 to request a review of a particular street for consideration of these
measures.

Beyond these measures, citizens often ask for speed humps and other physical traffic calming
devices. For a variety of reasons, the city discontinued installation of
physical devices several years ago. Whether to resume the use of physical
devices is one of the key questions to be addressed in the policy review.

Here is a list of the public meetings, including date, time and location:

North
Knoxville

           
Monday, September 16, 5:30 p.m.

           
Church of the Good Shepherd

           
5337 Jacksboro Pike

South
Knoxville

           
Monday, September 30, 6 p.m.

           
Woodlawn Christian Church

           
4339 Woodlawn Pike

West
Knoxville

           
Thursday, October 10, 6 p.m.

           
Arnstein Jewish Community Center

           
6800 Deane Hill Drive

Northwest
Knoxville

           
Monday, October 14, 6 p.m.

           
Northwest Middle School

           
5301 Pleasant Ridge Road

East
Knoxville / City Center

           
Tuesday, October 22, 5:30 p.m.

           
John T. O’Connor Senior Center

           
611 Winona Street