Plan set to slow speeders
Peterson Road resident Stephanie Jeffrey addresses assistant Town Engineer Matt Brazille and others during a Thursday, Jan. 17, meeting in Farragut Town Hall where Town officials proposed a solution for traffic calming measures on the heavily-traveled entrance road for Kings Gate subdivision.
Assistant Town engineer Matt Brazille led a meeting Thursday, Jan. 17, that also included Mayor Ron Williams, Vice Mayor Louise Povlin, Mark Shipley, Community Development director, and two Kings Gate residents, Stephanie Jeffrey of Peterson Road and Nora Timmerman of Midhurst Drive.
Jeffrey and her husband, Brian Jeffrey, had led the neighborhood last year in petitioning Town officials to find a solution to prevalent speeding on Peterson Road, which they said wreaked havoc on the neighborhood and put children in danger.
Brian Jeffrey began filming speeders on Peterson to encourage residents to slow down, and really hammered at the situation after the couple’s son was clipped by a truck, though uninjured, after exiting the school bus.
Brazille presented a proposal that would reduce the lane size, from 13 feet in each direction to nine feet in each direction, then adding 6-foot bike/pedestrian path and a 2-foot striped buffer zone. Rumble strips also would provide a secondary buffer, and be located on the roadway between the bike/pedestrian path and the travel lanes.
He said reducing the lane width would ensure motorist speed reduction, and the bike/pedestrian path would help address safety concerns.
Any consideration of sidewalks would be cost prohibitive, he said, and noted how residents would have to vote on the measure even if it was a consideration.
After Brazille explained the proposal, Jeffrey was quick to say, “Do it.”
Peterson Road already was on the list of Town roads to be resurfaced in fiscal year 2020, Brazille said, so the striping would not take place until after July 1, but he said it should be in place “by the end of August.”
Both Jeffrey and Timmerman asked if residents could request the same proposal on Midhurst, to which Brazille answered yes.
“You might want to see how this (Peterson Road project) goes,” he added. “We will do a follow-up study six months afterward, to make sure it is working.”
Povlin said she “loved the solution” Brazille offered.
“I have been frustrated with our traffic-calming policies for several years,” she added “This is not just about the cars — it is about bicyclists, its about pedestrians, it’s about everyone. I think this is a big breakthrough for us.”
