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CarGuru > Driving > Knoxville Orange Line news 28 March 2005 14:37:14

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Knoxville Orange Line news
John Lansford 27 March 2005 19:34:08
	(This article sounds so familiar. Trying to determine a project's route by committee is a lengthy, difficult and quite often a futile exercise.) http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/local_news/article/0,1406,KNS_347_3653434,00.html They can't agree on how to reach decisions. And they haven't agreed on what needs to be decided. They can't even agree on what they've already agreed to. Welcome to the world of public involvement formulating the path and design of a major and controversial road project. Since April 2004, 19 people have been meeting as part of an abbreviated version of the Context Sensitive Solutions concept applied to the proposed Knoxville Regional Parkway. If built, the road, formerly called the Orange Route, will be designated State Route 475. The members of the Knoxville Regional Parkway Design Resource Team were gleaned from communities affected by the route, area business interests, environmental groups and government representatives from the three counties touched by the route. Resource team members have met nine times, with sessions ranging from four to eight hours long. Team members said that as of March, they have invested between 40 and 100 hours of their time in the effort. Yet the resource team tasked with recommending a route for the Knoxville Parkway is months behind schedule, fraught with friction among the members and beleaguered with distrust for each other and the process in which they are engaged. Even a decision by the group that was announced in a Tennessee Department of_Transportation newsletter to eliminate the Hardin Valley Road interchange is in dispute. Some members say they never voted on the question. And although some members of the team have considered resigning, most still think something beneficial will arise from their work. "No matter how tough it gets and people go at each other, nobody says just go away and build it," said Ed Cole, chief of environment and planning with TDOT. ... TDOT selected the Orange Route over a Blue Route that would have skirted Oak Ridge and a Green Route that would have partially followed Pellissippi Parkway. The purpose of the S.R. 475 bypass, according to TDOT, is to alleviate the congestion caused daily by the flow of 160,000 vehicles passing the Papermill Drive area on the commingled Interstate 40/75. The proposed 36.5-mile-long, four-lane road would join Interstate 75 in Loudon County to I-75 in Anderson County near Wolf Valley Road. The route will lay a 300-foot-wide swath of asphalt and right-of-way through some of the most pastoral land in Knox County. Despite TDOT's tardy commitment to involve the impacted communities in the planning and design process of the route, CABOL remains opposed to the project. "The overall reality of the process being utilized by TDOT is that no matter what changes in the Orange Route are made to minimize its environmental impact, the need and benefits of the project remain dubious," Richey wrote on CABOL's Web site. Richey noted that having CABOL member Robert Shaw, of Anderson County, on the resource team "is only a hedge against the possibility that the road may eventually be constructed " Richey said CABOL continues to retain environmental attorney Joe McCaleb "with the full intention of taking legal action" once TDOT settles on a road design. ... With the creation of the resource team, TDOT noted it was applying a Context Sensitive Solutions concept to the project. The CSS concept, however, involves public participation in deciding whether a road is needed and then fitting it within the community in a noninvasive way. With the Orange Route, TDOT selected it over two other options and even designated a 1,000-foot-wide corridor for the road. The resource team was told to place the 300-foot-wide parkway within that corridor. (Oops. Big Mistake #1; basically saying "here's where the road will go generally, now you determine where specifically it will go within this area. This isn't Context Sensitive Solutions; this is a bandaid on an already broken process and the public has figured that out already.) ... Shaw and Roland Terrell, who represents the Solway Area Residents Association, have repeatedly challenged TDOT on its partial CSS process. The men question how TDOT can contend the resource team is involved in a CSS process when the most important part of the concept - deciding if a road is needed - wasn't included. (BINGO. They got it right. CSS is all about determining the need for a road in addition to locating where it goes if the need is valid. Lawsuits will be filed on this if TNDOT continues forward with this plan, and they may very well win or at least delay the project. Once you demonstrate to the public your intentions on a project, it is very, very hard to get them to believe you when they are told their comments will be seriously considered.) ... Cole agreed the group is not engaged in a "pure CSS" process, and he told the resource team "you all are facing the consequences" of that failing. Resource team member Wes Stowers agreed TDOT's former administration fumbled the public relations ball with the Orange Route. Stowers, who owns Stowers Machinery Corp. in Knoxville, represents the Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership on the team. "I think if TDOT had talked to the community leaders early, we wouldn't have the problems we're having now," Stowers said. Greg Fay, general manager of Clinton Utilities Board who represents the East Tennessee Economic Development Agency on the team, wondered where the project would be now if TDOT had applied the CSS process to the proposed bypass years ago. ... Even the public involvement aspect of the project hasn't been without snafus. Carolyn Greenwood, who represents the Karns community on the team, said public input has been selectively used by TDOT. Greenwood is opposed to the project because of the lack of justification for the road. "I haven't seen evidence that they have given the public comments enough attention," said Greenwood, the working mother of two school-age children. Greenwood said TDOT noted public support for an Oak Ridge highway interchange, while at the same time the agency ignored comments that the Orange Route is too close to Knoxville. When Greenwood reviewed a TDOT Web site containing summaries of comments from four public meetings conducted in August 2004, she found errors. "It came out looking like people in Karns supported the project, and I went back and reviewed those forms and found that wasn't the case," Greenwood said. "That's when I got shook. That's when I became less of a team player. They said it was not bad faith, just a mistake, and I hope that's true." TDOT corrected the misinformation in November 2004 after Greenwood brought it to the agency's attention. David Lindeman, vice president of Palmer Engineering, said he was warned by TDOT that the parkway project elicited passionate emotions in the community. Palmer Engineering is a Kentucky firm that has applied the CSS process to a dozen projects and is overseeing the design of the Knoxville Parkway. ... "We're not a team," Solway's Terrell said. "We're a group of individuals representing a wide-ranging view of interests. "I won't be the patsy for the governor or Mr. (TDOT Commissioner Gerald) Nicely. If we can't reach a consensus, if we're a hung jury, let them either make the decisions or start over again, but I won't take a bullet for them." (All too often that is the attitude the public takes on difficult projects. They feel the decisions have already been made and the public involvement stage is just window dressing that the state must follow in order to meet the FHWA rules. TNDOT has a past history of doing exactly that, and the public's memory is very long on such issues. Starting with an already selected corridor and then claiming they want public input for a CSS committee sounds exactly like they do want a "patsy" from the public, in fact.) ... In December, TDOT had Mary English, a research leader with the University of Tennessee's Energy, Environment and Resources Center, poll the resource team members to gauge the group's status. The results were strident. English noted 10 members commented others may not be clear on the mission of team. English took pains in her report to not identify the speakers of the comments she quoted. Nine members of the team represent communities and environmental groups, while 10 come from governments and business interests. "Several elaborated that some of the other members have not bought into the objective of the process; they want to alter or stop the road project," English wrote in her report. "These members added that because of this obstructionist attitude, the process is frustrating and is 'digressing backward.' Another said that those who are not committed to the mission statement should respectfully resign." At least one member told English that Palmer Engineering employees were steamrolling the group to a predetermined conclusion. That unidentified member mentioned they were considering resigning from the team. In interviews for this story, Solway's Terrell said, "The thought has crossed my mind, but I'm not a quitter." Karns' Greenwood said she also has considered resigning from the team. ... Under the tutelage of Palmer Engineering, the team has undergone a crash course on road planning, congestion and environmental issues. "We have gone to parkway school for a year," ETEDA's Fay said. "I understand interchanges, acoustics, medians, road footprints, all those things." In addition to the 19 members of the resource team, several subcommittees have been hard at work reviewing designated portions of the proposed route. Four regional subcommittees - each with six or seven members of the community - have been studying the road alignment in Loudon County, Hardin Valley, Solway and Karns and the Claxton, Powell and Heiskell areas. Community members from those subcommittees also joined with resource team members to form four issue groups. Those issues include interchange locations, air quality and noise, caves and streams and greenway options. The issue groups and subcommittees make recommendations to the resource team, which is tasked with making final recommendations to TDOT. (Oh good grief. So many subgroups are just going to make the situation even more complicated. Anyone think those subgroup members aren't holding their own meetings with other people outside the organization? I certainly think that's exactly what they are doing.) ... Some members of the resource team argue a true bypass wouldn't have any interchanges along the route. Others contend the route should have several so the road can serve local traffic. "If you put a bunch of interchanges on this, you'll just move the congestion from where it is to a new place," CABOL's Shaw said. Other items yet to be decided by the resource team include an alignment that spares farms and homes within the corridor, appearance and design speed of the road, berms, road elevation, noise barriers, landscaping and if it will be divided by a grassy median. Some members want to use environmental concerns to make design decisions, while others counter such expertise should be left to the TDOT experts. (These are basic concepts that MUST be decided early on before a route or location of access points can be determined. Design speed not determined? Width of median or even the presence of a median not determined? They don't even have a typical section, so there's no way they can even start considering what environmental impacts may be for any given route!) -------------------------------------------------- Hopefully TNDOT will learn from this debacle and realize in the future that new location projects that have the potential for such controversy will involve the public from the start, not as a bandaid or to create patsys for a failed process. John Lansford, PE -- The unofficial I-26 Construction Webpage: http://users.vnet.net/lansford/a10/
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Guest 28 March 2005 01:20:33 [ permanent link ]
	John Lansford wrote:> Other items yet to be decided by the resource team include an> alignment that spares farms and homes within the corridor, appearance> and design speed of the road, berms, road elevation, noise barriers,> landscaping and if it will be divided by a grassy median.> Some members want to use environmental concerns to make design> decisions, while others counter such expertise should be left to the> TDOT experts.> (These are basic concepts that MUST be decided early on before a route> or location of access points can be determined. Design speed not> determined? Width of median or even the presence of a median not> determined? They don't even have a typical section, so there's no way> they can even start considering what environmental impacts may be for> any given route!)> If all this "input" was required to build the Interstate system, maybe 50% would have actually been built to Interstate standards. TNDOT should have decided up front that they wanted to build an alternate to I-75 -- or maybe even a relocation of I-75 -- and, thus, it would be built to Interstate standards. Period. THEN work with the public to choose a route and interchange locations that mimimize impacts without significantly diminishing utility. Guy Olsen, PE (NJ)
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John Lansford 28 March 2005 03:56:29 [ permanent link ]
	GuyPOlsen@AOL.com wrote: John Lansford wrote:>> Other items yet to be decided by the resource team include an>> alignment that spares farms and homes within the corridor, appearance>> and design speed of the road, berms, road elevation, noise barriers,>> landscaping and if it will be divided by a grassy median.>> Some members want to use environmental concerns to make design>> decisions, while others counter such expertise should be left to the>> TDOT experts.>> (These are basic concepts that MUST be decided early on before a>route>> or location of access points can be determined. Design speed not>> determined? Width of median or even the presence of a median not>> determined? They don't even have a typical section, so there's no way>> they can even start considering what environmental impacts may be for>> any given route!)>> If all this "input" was required to build the Interstate system, maybe>50% would have actually been built to Interstate standards. Nonsense. The states would have still been required to hold to certain standards in order to get the 90% Federal Interstate money. In this case TNDOT should have stated what they wanted to do: build an interstate level freeway that bypassed Knoxville to the west to relieve traffic pressures on existing I-40 and I-75. Their mistake on this project is not trying to involve the public in an honest attempt to get valid input from the start. They cannot decide to build a freeway and then go looking for a reason to justify it, and later ask the public to rubber stamp the proposal. TNDOT should have decided up front that they wanted to build an>alternate to I-75 -- or maybe even a relocation of I-75 -- and, thus,>it would be built to Interstate standards. Period. THEN work with the>public to choose a route and interchange locations that mimimize>impacts without significantly diminishing utility.> I agree. TNDOT has a history, however, of proposing one type of road and then upgrading it during design to get an interstate name put on it. They did this for US 23 in Unicoi County and are currently doing it with the megaloop around Nashville (TN 840?), but I had thought all along they wanted a freeway bypass for the Orange Line. John Lansford, PE -- The unofficial I-26 Construction Webpage: http://users.vnet.net/lansford/a10/
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Guest 28 March 2005 06:33:51 [ permanent link ]
	John Lansford wrote:> GuyPOlsen@AOL.com wrote:> John Lansford wrote:> >> Other items yet to be decided by the resource team include an> >> alignment that spares farms and homes within the corridor, appearance> >> and design speed of the road, berms, road elevation, noise barriers,> >> landscaping and if it will be divided by a grassy median.> >> Some members want to use environmental concerns to make design> >> decisions, while others counter such expertise should be left to TDOT experts.> >> (These are basic concepts that MUST be decided early on before a> >route> >> or location of access points can be determined. Design speed not> >> determined? Width of median or even the presence of a median not> >> determined? They don't even have a typical section, so there's no they can even start considering what environmental impacts may be any given route!)> >> If all this "input" was required to build the Interstate system, maybe> >50% would have actually been built to Interstate standards.> Nonsense. The states would have still been required to hold to certain> standards in order to get the 90% Federal Interstate money. In that case, I probably should have said "built at all." In this case TNDOT should have stated what they wanted to do: build interstate level freeway that bypassed Knoxville to the west to> relieve traffic pressures on existing I-40 and I-75. Their mistake on> this project is not trying to involve the public in an honest attempt> to get valid input from the start. They cannot decide to build a> freeway and then go looking for a reason to justify it, and later ask> the public to rubber stamp the proposal. Given your knowledge of NEPA/CSS/etc., and where they are now, what would be the best way for TNDOT to get an Interstate (475 or 75) bypass of Knoxville? Given the shorter distance, I would think the reduced vehicle miles and vehicle hours would mean fuel savings and lower emissions for anything resembling the orange route. Better service for Oak Ridge would also be a plus. TNDOT should have decided up front that they wanted to build an> >alternate to I-75 -- or maybe even a relocation of I-75 -- and, thus,> >it would be built to Interstate standards. Period. THEN work with public to choose a route and interchange locations that mimimize> >impacts without significantly diminishing utility.> > I agree. TNDOT has a history, however, of proposing one type of road> and then upgrading it during design to get an interstate name put on> it. They did this for US 23 in Unicoi County and are currently doing> it with the megaloop around Nashville (TN 840?), but I had thought along they wanted a freeway bypass for the Orange Line.> TNDOT didn't want 840 to be a freeway from the get-go? Guy Olsen, PE (NJ)
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John Lansford 28 March 2005 14:37:14 [ permanent link ]
	GuyPOlsen@AOL.com wrote: John Lansford wrote: In this case TNDOT should have stated what they wanted to do: build>> an interstate level freeway that bypassed Knoxville to the west to>> relieve traffic pressures on existing I-40 and I-75. Their mistake on>> this project is not trying to involve the public in an honest attempt>> to get valid input from the start. They cannot decide to build a>> freeway and then go looking for a reason to justify it, and later ask>> the public to rubber stamp the proposal.> Given your knowledge of NEPA/CSS/etc., and where they are now, what>would be the best way for TNDOT to get an Interstate (475 or 75) bypass>of Knoxville?> Given the shorter distance, I would think the reduced vehicle miles and>vehicle hours would mean fuel savings and lower emissions for anything>resembling the orange route. Better service for Oak Ridge would also>be a plus. I haven't seen their P&N or draft EIS, but ISTM they've not been honest with the citizens there. Probably the best way would be to put everything back on the table, declare that there is not a preferred corridor, and get the public involved in a meaningful discussion as to what needs to be done in order to meet the goals. Several years ago I inherited a project from another engineer in Waynesville. Their design was to five lane an existing road, a plan widely reviled by the citizens there. Over 250 people showed up at the hearing and all of them were 100% opposed to the design. I was asked to redesign the project, and we ended up meeting with the public with basically no design at all, just ideas. The people in the meeting (about 200 of them) were divided into groups, given notepads and a map of the old design and asked to write down what you wanted done to this road. We got lots of information, and after compiling it and many designs later, provided at a new hearing an alternative that was hailed by the public as a vast improvement over the original proposal. It took a long time for a simple widening project, however, and there was opposition from the business and development industry that we were backing out of promises made to them (they felt the original 5 lane road was the best design). Overcoming the distrust between public and NCDOT was the hardest part of the whole process, though; once that was overcome, the dialogue began and we were able to communicate in both directions to the benefit of both of us. TNDOT should have decided up front that they wanted to build an>> >alternate to I-75 -- or maybe even a relocation of I-75 -- and,>thus,>> >it would be built to Interstate standards. Period. THEN work with>the>> >public to choose a route and interchange locations that mimimize>> >impacts without significantly diminishing utility.>> > I agree. TNDOT has a history, however, of proposing one type of road>> and then upgrading it during design to get an interstate name put on>> it. They did this for US 23 in Unicoi County and are currently doing>> it with the megaloop around Nashville (TN 840?), but I had thought>all>> along they wanted a freeway bypass for the Orange Line.>> TNDOT didn't want 840 to be a freeway from the get-go? Well, it is a freeway, and common sense dictates it will be eventually an interstate outer loop around Nashville. TNDOT has a history, however, of circumventing Federal oversight and Federal environmental regulations by using state money to design and build a highway, and only afterwards do they ask for Interstate designation. John Lansford, PE -- The unofficial I-26 Construction Webpage: http://users.vnet.net/lansford/a10/
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CarGuru > Driving > Knoxville Orange Line news 28 March 2005 14:37:14

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