This is a printer friendly version of an article from www.thedailytimes.com
To print this article open the file menu and choose Print.
Article published Dec 13, 2007 State seeks extension route input
By Joel Davis of The Daily Times Staff
The Tennessee Department of Transportation will begin asking at workshops in early 2008 for public opinion on what route, if any, the proposed Pellissippi Parkway extension should follow. TDOT is drafting an environmental impact statement that will discuss possible alternatives to the project. Those options would include not building the extension, changes to how traffic is managed, mass transit, upgrading other roadways in the northeastern part of Blount County or building a new four-lane roadway at a new location. It could take up to three years to complete the EIS. The next workshop will gather public input on where the road should run, if built, said TDOT spokesman Travis Brickey. “Right now, we don’t have a finite line drawn on a map,” he said. “We have to look at alternate corridors. One alternate could be a couple hundred feet to the left, or it may follow the original alignment. ... All that is still in development. At the next public meeting that we have, we’ll want to look at some more of those alternate corridors because right now we’re just looking down from 10,000 feet. We haven’t got down to the weeds yet.” The proposed Pellissippi Parkway extension would tie Highway 33 (Old Knoxville Highway) to East Lamar Alexander Parkway. The most recent extension of the Pellissippi Parkway to Old Knoxville Highway was completed in mid-August of 2006. During the next public meeting, which may be held in February, TDOT also wants to bring in local officials to answer citizens’ questions about the capacity of the county’s infrastructure, such as schools and roads. “At our last public meeting, we had a lot of questions that were asked of TDOT about the local infrastructure that (we) really couldn’t answer,” Brickey said. “At the next meeting, we’ll be sure we have all the local officials there who can answer those type of questions.” Nina Gregg, a member of the Board of Directors of Citizens Against the Pellissippi Parkway Extension (CAPPE), said Wednesday that TDOT still needs to address those questions. “Everybody agrees — opponents, advocates, people who have no opinion on the parkway extension — that it will accelerate growth in the county,” Gregg said. “We have a growing awareness across the county that residential development, in fact, costs us in public dollars and that property taxes don’t generate enough revenue to pay for the services that residential growth requires — schools, law enforcement, etc.” The National Environmental Policy Act goes into quite a lot of detail about what the environmental impact statement is to document, she said. “Not just what this one segment would do, but what is going to happen in the surrounding area. It’s a legitimate question that the EIS should answer. Local officials don’t have that kind of data.” CAPPE will have a presence at the next public meeting, Gregg said. “The process is unfolding,” she said. “We will participate like we are invited to. The whole public is invited to participate.”