Few area residents would disagree that the current form of U.S. Highway 27, as it loops around the west side of downtown from Interstate 24 to Olgiati Bridge, is a tricky, obsolete, inadequate and often dangerous stretch of highway. As a vital artery that carries upwards of 70,000 vehicles a day, the bulk of them entering and exiting downtown, the expressway merits a major redesign.
In rush hour, the chief risks derive from the snake-like curves and the conflicting on-and-off ramps that slow traffic and, worse, that jam simultaneously merging and exiting vehicles together, on both sides of the highway, between Martin Luther King Boulevard and Fourth Street. Remodeling to straighten out the curves, redesign the on-and-off road network, and create an orderly flow of that traffic into and out of town, is long overdue.
Yet finding a consensus on what a redesign should look like is almost as difficult as negotiating Highway 27 at peak rush hour. A plan developed by the Tennessee Department of Transportation roughly 20 years ago foundered on local dissent. Now, a new $80 million TDOT plan appears on course for approval
No consensus yet
Yet the same major obstacles remain unresolved: the shape and flow of traffic at the major intersections of MLK Boulevard and Fourth Street; pedestrian access from the west side of the expressway to the heart of downtown; and the design of the high retaining walls and separation barriers along the highway that hugs — or chokes — the city at its tight nexus with the high stump of a sawed-off Cameron Hill, and other points along the expressway.