Whether neighborhood residents are for or against the narrowing of Hixson Pike at the small Riverview shopping area, we hope they give the city's transportation department their opinions about proposed changes.
The city's transportation department wants to narrow the road's five lanes to three, cut the speed on the road from 35 mph to 25 mph, add bike lanes and create parallel parking.
Such a decision should be neighborhood driven and not based on nonspecific safety concerns or the need to further populate the city with little used bike lanes.
We're not sure the $50,000-$75,000 worth of work, which would include new and improved sidewalks, streetscaping and improved bus loading zones, is necessary.
After all, the current layout of the area already forces traffic to slow coming from Barton Avenue downhill onto Hixson Pike and to stop at the traffic signal at Dorchester Street/Tremont Street or coming from the two-lane (per side) Hixson Pike into the Riverview shopping area and the traffic signal before the road turns uphill onto the one-lane (per side) Barton Avenue.
Area residents already have expressed concerns, given the proposals, about parallel parking, truck deliveries, pedestrian safety and the potential for the area to become as congested as nearby Frazier Avenue.
Since Hixson Pike already is boulevard-wide as it leaves the Riverview shopping district and heads north, we don't believe the road needs bike lanes, either. Indeed, there is currently room for a bike path - for the few bikes that use it - in addition to the four lanes moving part of the way up Hixson Pike between the Riverview shopping area and East Dallas Road.
We think the money would be put to better use on paving, which some Chattanooga City Council members have said should be doubled from the $3.6 million allotted for it in the 2017 budget.
The city transportation engineer said the Chattanooga City Council doesn't need to sign off on the project and that work could begin as soon as mid-May.
We hope that doesn't mean the work already has been green-lighted and there's still time to hear from neighborhood residents. Although we don't see the need for the changes, we hope those in the area will make their opinions - for or against - known, so at least there's buy-in from those who will be most affected.