Chattanoogans overall are pretty happy with their town except for speeders and rough roads, according to the 2017 annual Community Survey released Thursday.
The survey measures residents' satisfaction with the city as a place to live, work and raise children and is conducted by the city auditor's office.
For 2017, the survey's fifth year, 88 percent of the people who responded said Chattanooga is a good place to live, 71 percent called it a good place to work or to retire, and 68 percent said it's a good place to raise children. Those numbers track closely with the prior years.
City Auditor Stan Sewell, though, noted in his cover letter to Mayor Andy Berke and Chattanooga City Council members that some results varied widely among the nine council districts, and that the sample of city residents who sent in responses tended to be more prosperous and better-educated than the city as a whole.
Who spoke up
The city mailed 10,000 surveys out in May and received 2,102 back, for a return rate of 22 percent. Analysis showed respondents were older and more educate than the city population as a whole. Minorities, including Hispanics, were underrepresented and women overrepresented among the respondents.› 66 percent have lived in the city more than 20 years› 77 percent own their homes› 54 percent had incomes between $20,000 and $74,999› 79 percent had some college or were college graduatesSource: 2017 Community Survey
Sewell encouraged the various city officials who received copies of the survey results "to study trends and differences in community perceptions as they consider strategies to improve services across the nine city districts."
Chattanoogans' overall perceptions of how safe they are in their neighborhoods, parks and downtown have stayed steady or trended up by a point or two since the first survey in 2013.
Berke's highly publicized campaign to combat gang crime, the Violence Reduction Initiative, has had mixed results, but gang-related shootings have fallen sharply this year.
Ninety-one percent said they feel safe walking alone in their neighborhoods in daylight and 53 percent felt safe at night, numbers that also track the prior four years. A two-thirds majority felt safe alone in their neighborhood parks during the day, but only 28 percent said they felt safe at night.
Likewise, 59 percent felt safe walking downtown during the day, but only 27 percent would feel safe there alone at night.
Police Chief David Roddy said Thursday the survey, along with data analysis and community relationships, help the department respond to community perceptions about crime and safety.
"Some of the concerns highlighted in the survey, specifically the lower perception of safety in our downtown and parks, has been a topic of collaborative meetings resulting in planning on increased lighting in certain areas of the city and the use of non traditional patrol techniques in the downtown area," Roddy said in an emailed statement.
Chattanoogans generally gave high marks to other city services, from 911, fire and EMS to garbage and curbside recycling collection and even storm drainage and sewer service.
But they're not a bit happy with the city's rough and crowded streets, or the number of speeders.
Roddy said the city uses citizen complaints and crash data to focus on problem areas for speeders.
"Speeding is in fact an issue city wide and therefore we are investing in additional moving radar equipment for the patrol fleet to increase our ability to conduct enforcement and change driver behavior," Roddy said in his email. "In addition to this CPD also participates in enforcement initiatives with our other law enforcement partners to reduce speeding."
Only 22 percent of survey respondents were satisfied with the smoothness of Chattanooga's roads, down 11 percentage points from 2013, and 46 percent said rush-hour congestion is bad or very bad, up from 36 percent in 2013.
"There's not a week that goes by I'm not talking to someone about being able to get around in the city," said District 1 Councilman Chip Henderson.
At home in the city
Among those surveyed, a large share uses city amenities rarely or not at all, according to the 2017 Community Survey.› 80 percent have never ridden a CARTA bus› 62 percent have never been involved in a community project or public meeting› 49 percent have never visited a Chattanooga Public Library branch› 41 percent have never been to the Tivoli Theatre or Memorial Auditorium› 35 percent have never visited the chattanooga.gov website› 21 percent have never visited a city park
He said road paving consistently is the No. 1 issue in his district, which runs from Lookout Valley through parts of North Chattanooga and up to Hixson, but congestion from growth and development is a growing problem.
North Chattanooga has a "terrible problem" with congestion, which also is growing in Hixson with new development, he said. The constant back-ups on Interstate 24 in the west side of town traps Lookout Valley residents, whose alternative is to wait in long lines to creep under two-lane railroad underpasses.
"We're to the point that we've really outgrown our infrastructure, our roads, but we're not to the point we can really have great public transportation," Henderson said.
Henderson said he's proud the mayor and council boosted the paving budget to $5 million in the coming year, up from $1.7 million when Henderson joined the council in 2013.
Chattanooga Transportation Director Blythe Bailey said city residents are going to be seeing a lot more work on roads and bridges in the coming year. Along with the boost in paving money, Bailey said, the city was able to raise its share of federal transportation maintenance money from $1.5 million to $3.4 million over the next four years.
"Because of our efforts locally with the city, we were able to increase the federal pot of money that's available for maintenance almost 2.5 times from what we inherited. I'm real proud of that," Bailey said.
He said the city is looking at solutions to congestion, but added that many of the main traffic arteries are state or federal highways, not city streets.
Still, Bailey said, the annual Community Survey is a useful tool city government can use to focus on residents' needs and concerns.
In the survey, District 1 residents ranked as the most satisfied with their quality of life and the services they receive, though they think fire and police response times have gone down. Most of those surveyed felt they got a fair value in city services for taxes paid.
The lowest satisfaction rates overall were in District 8 and 9.
A majority of District 8 residents felt their neighborhoods were unsafe at night. In District 9, concerns about safety and crime were high and residents are increasingly dissatisfied with the quality and affordability of recreation programs and the physical condition of their homes and neighborhoods.
The council representatives for those districts, Anthony Byrd and Demetrus Coonrod, could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Contact staff writer Judy Walton at jwalton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6416.