letter to the editor
Turn Town greenway $ into turn lanes
The Farragut Board of Mayor and Aldermen will vote this Thursday, June 13, on the second and final vote on the Town of Farragut Fiscal 2025 budget.
In the farragutpress issue April 24, 2024, there is a story about the Fiscal 2025 budget: https://farragutpress.com/articles/2024/04/13759
This item is not needed; “Turkey Creek Road/Greenway improvements, $500,000 for right-of-way and $2 million for construction in 2027.”
This Turkey Creek Road Greenway extension is a want, not a need. What the people of Farragut need is two new 11-foot lefthand turn lanes at Kingston Pike and Campbell Station Road, which the traffic study in 2020 for the Biddle Farm Apartments said would be required by the year 2025.
In 2020, over 15,000 vehicles a day passed through the Kingston Pike and Campbell Station Road intersection. That number has increased in the last four years. This is far more important than a greenway extension that is not needed.
I request the Mayor and Aldermen take out the $2.5 million greenway extension and replace it with the $1.55 million expense for the two new 11-foot lefthand turn lanes at Kingston Pike and Campbell Station Road.
In 2023 the Mayor and Aldermen pushed the two new lefthand turn lanes out to 2026 saying they could not afford them.
It is time for the priorities to change to needs rather than wants.
Mike Mitchell,
Farragut
