Sonja Dr., Admiral Road speed bumps OK’d by FMPC; Farragut View heard
Farragut View subdivision residents may finally see some results of their pleas for measures to stop speeding along Sonja Drive and Admiral Road.
During its meeting Thursday, Sept. 21, Farragut Municipal Planning Commission voted to recommend the Board of Mayor and Aldermen approve the installation of traffic-calming speed bumps at four locations along Sonja Drive and three locations on Admiral Road in the subdivision.
Additionally, a sidewalk will be installed and a narrow part of the road will be widened.
“I’m pleased that we’re moving forward with that effort to adjust the policy to allow traffic calming,” Sonja Drive resident Larry Johnson said. “I think it’s a very important safety consideration.
“I’m very excited about this for those residents,” said Vice Mayor Louise Povlin, an FMPC member. “Farragut View is our second or third oldest neighborhood in the community, so retrofitting a neighborhood of that age with a sidewalk is a big deal, and I’m just thrilled that we’re seeing some changes here.
“Hopefully, this is the beginning of resolving and providing a better quality of life for the people in that neighborhood whose so deserving,” she added.
“The traffic-calming procedure in our Town has been a learning experience for us — where we can do (speed bumps), where we can’t do it,” said Mayor Ron Williams, also an FMPC member. “Our Town engineer has been very patient with teaching us what we needed to learn about this, so our staff could craft a great policy.”
Although assistant Town engineer Eric Schindler proposed postponing installing one of the speed bumps on a portion of Sonja Drive, between Admiral Road and Dundee, since the Town is widening that portion for a sidewalk project, FMPC voted to recommend installing all the proposed speed bumps.
Total cost of the Sonja Drive speed bumps would be $15,000, while the cost of the speed cushions proposed on Admiral Road would be $12,000.
Vice chairman Ed St. Clair thinks the cost of potentially tearing up one of the speed bumps for the sidewalk project would be trivial.
“I think safety supercedes whatever savings there would be, especially when we don’t know when the road is going to be widened,” FMPC member Shannon Preston said about installing all four speed cushions on Sonja Drive.
“I certainly support putting all four (speed bumps) in right away and eating whatever cost is involved,” said Jeff Devlin, a new FMPC member who also is with Rural Metro Fire. “I’ve driven Sonja Drive in a fire truck many times in the past, and certainly I’m excited to hear that parts of it are going to be widened. It’s definitely a dangerous place.”
Residents addressed FMPC and the Board on numerous occasions through the years with pleas to solve the speeding issues on those streets.
For Povlin, efforts to get speed bumps started in 2016, “when I walked my neighborhoods,” she said.
“Listening to people, most of them I met were struggling with speeding in their neighborhoods,” Povlin added.
“At that time, the traffic-calming policy, their road did not meet the standards because it was a collector (street).”
As such, the Town started the process of amending the traffic-calming policy.
“It took us three times,” Povlin recalled. “Sonja (residents) have been extremely patient and stuck with me while we worked through this.
“I’m sad it took so long, but this is the speed of government,” she added. “But we are getting a solution for the folks on Sonja. We’re getting a solution for the folks on Admiral Road. We are getting sidewalks on Sonja and Admiral, and we’re getting that stretch of road improved.”
