letter to editor
How to affect street change?
The farragutpress continues to inform us about issues with traffic and speeding throughout Farragut. Mrs. (Jennifer) Hay is using common sense after taking her blue card and having an asynchronous communication with (Farragut) BOMA.
My frustrated head was in my hands when I read the front page article. We have been on this subject since 2012. Or has it been longer?
We see our elected officials, as well as our Town administrator (David Smoak), demonstrating willingness to listen to homeowners as they beg for help to keep their neighborhoods safe from people speeding through them. They listen to parents asking for safer ways to get to and from school.
What is common is that there is still a belief that asking engineering to study the problems and then provide solutions is the path to take. We are asked to believe our efforts will actually result in engineering doing something to solve a thoughtfully presented problem.
Anyone who has been asking for things as simple as stop signs, traffic lights or speed indicators continues to get nothing. Some have asked for 20 years.
How do we change this process to one that yields meaningful results?
In 42 years as a business-process consultant, when I approached an organization that knew they needed to bring about change to keep people safe, or save money by fixing broken processes, I began every engagement with this:
“If you always think the way you always thought,
“You’ll always get what you always got.
“If you want to get different results, you have to do things differently.
“You can’t begin to do things differently until you learn to think differently.”
Engineering leadership believes that the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices is what should be followed, regardless of what common sense indicates or mandates. The MUTCD for streets and highways defines the standards used by road managers nationwide to install and maintain traffic control devices on all streets, highways, pedestrian and bicycle facilities and site roadways open to public travel. Terrific! What else?
It does not include how to apply common sense to what it recommends. If it is the sole guide to solving pressing problems, an engineering team can self-vindicate not taking action and still feel good about sleeping well at night while the affected citizens await the coming of an unnecessary death.
Mrs. Hay is right; so are all the good people that have pulled blue cards, been given five minutes to ask for a solution to exiting St. John Court onto Grigsby Chapel and achieved nothing.
I love living in Farragut and took the Introduction to Farragut class in 2021. We have no debt. Sales tax keeps us solvent. We have had a surplus of about 1.8 million dollars a year for the last 10 years. We have a smart traffic-signal system. Mrs. Hay can have a light that is set to operate at the time moms and kids are coming and going at St. John Neumann. It can just “blink” during off hours.
Should we do this now or await the inevitable life-stopping wreck?
If we keep going down the same path to the same people with the continuing traffic problems we have, it is evident they will self-vindicate by referring to their manual and saying that we don’t need the solutions we request.
That makes all of us citizens as responsible for the lack of progress as the people we pay to keep us safe. We have to take a new direction to bring about effective solutions.
Next steps please, Town of Farragut.
Kim Frasch,
Farragut
