Sevierville Road widening: Highway project to detour traffic for months
By Iva Butler | (ivab@thedailytimes.com)
A road construction project that starts Monday to widen a portion of Sevierville Road will have one lane of traffic coming into town and a detour of outgoing traffic for 10 to 12 months.
The road will be widened to three lanes with a center turn lane, sidewalks and curb and gutter on both sides.
The contractor on widening the 0.407 mile from west of Walnut Street to east of Bogart Lane is Highways Inc. at $1,664,351.
The project will run from where the current three-lane section near Everett High Road and Sevierville Road becomes two lanes past Cherokee Street to near Walnut Street.
Utility crews have been relocating existing utilities and installing new ones since February and have been using temporary lane closures with temporary flagging operations, said Maryville public information official Pam Arnett.
Relocated were natural gas, sewer, water, phone and cable lines.
This is a Tennessee Department of Transportation project, which will fund 100 percent of the work.
The traffic control plan will allow westbound-only traffic (coming into town) on Sevierville Road at all times (days/nights/weekends) from Everett High Road to Walnut Street.
Eastbound traffic (going out of town) on Sevierville Road will be open to local traffic only from Washington street to Walnut Street.
Through traffic will be detoured along Washington Street to East Lamar Alexander Parkway to Cherokee Street. After turning left onto Cherokee, the detour will continue with a right turn onto Crest Road. The detour will conclude with a left turn onto Wilcox Street and back onto Sevierville Road at the traffic signal.
This is the planned detour that will be marked with numerous signs, beacons and barricades, said Assistant City Engineer Brian Boone.
This pattern will likely be in place for the next 10-12 months or longer as the contractor builds one side of the new roadway.
Once the first phase of construction is completed, the contractor will attempt to reopen the roadway to two-way traffic.
The work is being financed through safety funds provided by the federal government to TDOT.
TDOT has a list of locations and this work was selected based on the number and severity of accidents occurring there.
“There are a lot of front-to-rear accidents where people stop to turn onto Cherokee Street and drivers come around the curve and hit them at right angles when the pavement is wet or slick,” Boone said.
