Traffic options at Grigsby Chapel-St. John Court: Hay
Concern over traffic at the intersection of St. John Court and Grigsby Chapel Road, particularly when families are arriving and leaving St. John Neumann Catholic School, brought resident Jennifer Hay to Farragut Board of Mayor and Aldermen’s meeting Thursday, Sept. 26.
During the citizen comments’ section of the meeting, Hay pleaded with the Board to secure a Knox County Sherriff’s Officer to direct traffic at the Grigsby Chapel Road-St. John Court intersection between the hours of 7:40 and 8 a.m. during school days. She also asked for a traffic signal at the Smith Road-Grigsby Chapel Road intersection.
Representing St. John Catholic School both as a parent and member of the school’s advisory board, she said both of those actions specifically were recommended in a professional traffic study commissioned by the Town in 2021.
“Our traffic problems have only worsened since then,” Hay said. “The service at the intersection of St. John Court and Grigsby Chapel is unacceptable for about 20 minutes every morning, when families are dropping off their students for school at St. John Neumann.
“With good intentions, people try to mitigate the problem by yielding the right of way,” she added. “This is going to lead to accidents, especially since many of the drivers who drop off at St. John Neumann are high school students dropping off their younger siblings before they head off to high school themselves.
In this 2021 traffic study according to Hay, “one of the specific recommendations was for a sheriff’s deputy to direct traffic during morning drop-offs for the school,” she said. “The cost for this is about $38,000 per year. This is not a cost that St. John Neumann School can or should pay.
“The Town is in a better position than we are to negotiate this price with the sheriff’s office, and we only need the deputy for about 20 minutes each morning,” Hay added.
However, “the minimum shift is four hours. Perhaps the Town could use the sheriff’s deputy for the remainder of that four-hour shift,” she said.
“We don’t exist in a vacuum,” Hay added. “Our traffic problems at St. John Neumann are exacerbated by the upstream stop sign at Smith Road.
“This stop sign makes it so there’s never a break in traffic. It’s a steady drip, drip, drip of cars, and this is what makes it so difficult to turn left from St. John Court, where the school is, onto Grigsby Chapel.
That same 2021 traffic study, Hay said, “specifically recommended a traffic signal at the intersection of Smith Road and Grigsby Chapel, but this has not been done.”
She noted the traffic signal “might be all we need.”
In other business, the Board unanimously approved on second and final reading:
• an event permit for St. John Neumann Catholic Church and School’s Mustang Miler from 8:30 to 11 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 26, from the school through the Grigsby Chapel Greenway and its Harvesting for Him Festival from 1:30 to 4 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 27, at 633 St. John Court.
