Via KnoxViews, the Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization is holding a series of workshops to get public input on the region's long range transportation plan.

The TPO also has an online survey regarding priorities for the long range plan. Following are the workshop schedules:

They are holding Regional Mobility Plan 2035 Public Workshops.

The Blount County workshop will be at the Blount County Public Library, Wednesday, June 4. Meetings begin at 6 p.m. unless noted otherwise, and should last about an hour.

Daily Times

The Blount County Planning Commission wants to keep a scaled-down variant of the controversial Southern Loop proposal on the drawing board.

During a special called meeting on Tuesday, planning commissioners indicated that they wanted to keep the proposal for a two-lane bypass around the cities of Alcoa and Maryville in the text of the county Policies Plan.

Planners let it slip in a recent TDOT public hearing on the Pellissippi Parkway Extension that local traffic congestion improvements would only be realized if the southern loop is completed.

Citizens Against the Pellissippi Parkway Extension explain the problem:

According to TDOT’s traffic studies, the PPE will produce marginal and short-lived improvements to traffic conditions on a few roads, and within 20 years even these limited improvements will have disappeared.

Becky White, whose firm did the traffic analysis for TDOT, said that this projection assumes the Southern Loop and other proposed new roads will be built.

[..]

Tell TDOT that they need to do credible traffic studies of the impact of the PPE on our existing road system – the road system that will be in place when the PPE is in use. Until this is done there is no objective data supporting the assertion that the PPE will alleviate traffic congestion anywhere in the cities or the county.

In other words, if the southern loop (for which other more desirable alternatives have been identified) is phased out of regional transportation plans, the PPE cannot be justified on the basis of relieving traffic congestion.

Decisions by the Knoxville Regional TPO influence TDOT planning and affect Blount County. They are seeking input for their long range plan. Go fill out this short survey.

Maryville Daily Times

More than 500 people packed the auditorium at Heritage High School Tuesday evening for a public meeting on the proposed extension of the Pellissippi Parkway.

Knoxville News Sentinel

Supporters and opponents of the proposed Pellissippi Parkway Extension jammed the auditorium at Heritage High School Tuesday night for a public hearing on one of the most contentious issues facing Blount County.

WBIR

A standing-room-only crowd of several hundred people flooded Heritage High School's auditorium Tuesday night for the latest details on a proposed Pellissippi Parkway expansion project.

If you did not get to ask your question or submit your comment last night, here is the person to contact at TDOT:

Michael W. Russell, P.E.
TDOT
7345 Region Lane
Knoxville, TN 37914

or

P.O. Box 58
Knoxville, TN 37901

Phone: 865.594.2334
Email: Mike.Russell@state.tn.us

The Pellissippi Parkway Extension is a done deal. The heads of the five families (Blount Co. Mayor, Maryville Mayor, Maryville City Manager, Alcoa Mayor, and Alcoa City Manager) all support it. A massive Chamber of Commerce turnout arrived in Mercedes Benz and wool suits to support it. They are well organized, and shouted down the "antis" at several points.

We're here, will try to live blog if battery and broadband connections hold up and I can work this keyboard all scrunched over.

CAPPE (Citizens Against the Pellissippi Parkway Extension, Inc.) members are preparing for the upcoming TDOT meeting on October 25 at Heritage High School from 5-8pm. For initial analysis, see below. For background, see Link...

Also worth noting is that TDOT gave less than 3 weeks notice for this meeting, in violation of their own policy to provide 30 days notice for all public meetings. See Link...

At the Oct. 25 meeting TDOT will present the ‘Purpose and Need’ for the PPE as well as ‘initial alternatives.’ The public will have opportunities to comment on the Purpose and Need and the alternatives. Written comments can be sent to TDOT for 21 days after the Oct. 25 meeting.

A 9/30/07 letter to the editor in The Daily Times proposed using remote parking lots and shuttle buses to Maryville High School as an alternative to paving over the neighborhood surrounding the high school in order to expand the school's capacity.

While I respect this forward-thinking transportation solution, I think we need to refocus the conversation. I am dismayed that we are talking about transportation solutions before education solutions. We need to pull these issues apart.

We exhaust ourselves planning for our cars. We seem unable to separate conceptually human beings from the steel that transports them. We conflate cars and citizenship, and we build communities that require people to have access to cars in order to fully participate in the community. We plan as if hospitality to cars in our downtowns or high schools or neighborhoods is the same as hospitality to people.

The truth is that too often we build spaces and host activities that aren't worth much of a commitment. We'll only participate or shop or eat when it is easy...when the commitment requires little more than the time it takes to navigate our cars through drive-through windows or into curbside pick-up spaces.

On the other hand, there are spaces and activities that are worth our commitment, and we participate even if car access isn't easy. We figure out how to get there because we want to be there. As a community we need to focus on building spaces and hosting activities worth caring about...worth committing to. Transportation to those spaces and activities will follow.

Let's make the Maryville High School expansion discussion about education. When we figure out the best way(s) to educate our children, there will be myriad ways of dealing with transportation. The transportation solution should follow and fit the education solution.