Money Talks
Now, what does it say
about Knoxville transportation?
BARRY HENDERSON
METRO PULSE
SEPTEMBER 1, 2005
The Knoxville metropolitan area has reaped a windfall, gaining about $110 million in new funds from passage of the 2005 version of the federal transportation reauthorization bill known by the ungainly name, "Safe, Accountable, Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act," or SAFETEA for short.
The act’s $120 million in funding for 2nd Congressional District projects resulted from influential prodding by Congressman Jimmy Duncan, a senior member of the House Transportation Committee; Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist; and Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Maryville native.
Together, they worked to get the money approved by Congress and the bill signed by the president Aug. 10, and the list of projects that affect Knoxville is impressive. Among its big-ticket items, it includes $11 million for the Knoxville Transit Center downtown, $17.5 million toward completion of the Foothills Parkway sections in Blount and Sevier Counties, $8 million for a "Great Smoky Mountain Heritage Highway Cultural and Visitors Center" at Maryville, $6 million for improvements to the Blount Avenue/Sevier Avenue corridor in South Knoxville, and $5 million to make access improvements to the I-275 Industrial and Business Park in North Knoxville.
The list goes on, with $14.4 million to widen parts of Oak Ridge and Maynardville Highways and Campbell Station Road in Knox County, $1.6 million for streetscape improvements along State Street near the Tennessee Theatre in Knoxville, and $1 million to add a pedestrian bridge to the Buck Karnes Bridge on Alcoa Highway for a greenway connector in the city.
The University of Tennessee’s Joint Institute for Advanced Materials Research gets $20 million, and the UT National Transportation Research Center gets $8 million in the bargain.
The new money, Duncan says, "will create thousands of jobs in East Tennessee while addressing some of our region’s most serious transportation needs," and Alexander called the highway and infrastructure improvements enabled under the act "critical to economic development in the 2nd District and across the state."
Mayor Bill Haslam says the jobs, and the attendant opportunities for business growth, will mean a lot to Knoxville. "It’s a lot of money," Haslam says. "That’s really needed here." Two of his pet projects, the I-275 Business Park and the South Knoxville Waterfront Redevelopment proposals, got important stimuli.
"Access [to the business park on the site of the former Coster Yards] was the principal limiting feature there," he says. He says businesses "have shown a high degree of interest" in the city-owned park since its environmental issues were resolved. The widening of a railroad underpass at its north edge and improvements in access to the interstate could represent the last straws to close deals, Haslam says.
The mayor also says that, though the South Knoxville Waterfront Redevelopment is "a big, long-term project," the "Blount/Sevier spine is one of the key issues" as outlined in the redevelopment’s feasibility study. The federal money will allow for sidewalk and lighting improvements along Sevier and widening of Blount’s one-lane bridge. "These are things that need to happen," Haslam says.
David Brace, deputy director of the city’s Public Service Division, says money that went from SAFETEA into the state DOT’s coffers will make greenway expansions and improvements, already applied for, possible, "and we’ll be able to apply for some other things, knowing that there’s something in the hopper to pay for them."
And the Transit Center’s proposed budget of $22 million is now in the bank. "We are very close," says Melissa Trevathan, KAT’s chief administrative officer. "We have a site. We have the money. We need a design, and we’re ready to go," she says.
Haslam says the design must work for KAT and for Knox County, which owns the air rights over the State Street site. "We’re working those things out right now," he says.
