The Daily Ration co-owner Matt Skudlarek speaks to a group of area residents and business owners who gathered at the restaurant to discuss traffic, parking and pedestrian safety issues in the Riverview business corridor.More parking and further pedestrian safety improvements in the Riverview business corridor could materialize following the completion of a traffic study by the Chattanooga Department of Transportation.
The study was ordered after area residents and business owners gathered at The Daily Ration in mid-November to discuss issues concerning crosswalk infrastructure, drivers speeding through the corridor, a lack of parking and improvements they feel need to made to the roads.
Possible solutions identified during the meeting included lengthening the time pedestrians have to cross Hixson Pike when they push the buttons at the crosswalks, adding on-street parking to slow down traffic and increase parking, and moving the lane merger on Hixson Pike farther from the stoplight at Tremont Street.
Shortly after the meeting, Matt Skudlarek, co-owner of The Daily Ration and organizer of the meeting, created a petition on change.org to show community support for the project. The petition had garnered 217 signatures as of press time, as well as more than 50 comments, all of which reinforced the desire for such improvements.
So far, the city has changed the timing of the crosswalks, which now give pedestrians 30 seconds to cross Hixson Pike as opposed to just 7, said Skudlarek.
"It's definitely a step in the right direction," he said. "It's much safer now to traverse."
CDOT traffic engineer Bert Kuyrkendall said the city has looked at previous traffic counts to project the impact of the new road configuration discussed by the group during the meeting, but will soon conduct a new count. The group has suggested moving the lane merger on Hixson Pike from the Tremont Street intersection to just north of the intersection with Dartmouth Street, as well as adding on-street parking on both sides of Hixson Pike between Tremont and Hanover streets and on one side of Hixson Pike between Tremont and Dartmouth streets, in front of Tremont Tavern and The Daily Ration.
Kuyrkendall said the city was waiting for all area schools to be back in session in order to get a more accurate model of the typical traffic running through the corridor.
"We're excited about the project, and I think Matt and the other business owners there have great ideas that I think are very doable," Kuyrkendall said. "We just need to make sure it will work for all the users of the system there."
If the data from the traffic study supports changing the configuration of the corridor, no work would take place until at least March, when the weather is warm enough for construction to begin, he added.
Email Emily Crisman at ecrisman@timesfreepress.com.