The Cookeville Municipal Planning Commission began the process of updating the city’s Major Street Plan during a Tuesday work session.
Cookeville Community Development Director Jon Ward said the plan currently includes 54 street projects, from paving new streets, to extending existing streets, adding turning lanes to changing intersections. One new project the commission discussed was converting Brown’s Mill Road into an I-40 parallel access street from Highway 111 to East Spring Street.
“It’s not too far south, and we did include Browns Mill in the urban growth boundary amendment,” Ward said. “I mean, that was one of the areas that we included was everything over here. So you know, I mean, I definitely don’t disagree, and that may be something that we want to include is Brown’s Mill Road improvements.”
Ward said other projects he would like to see added to the plan are connecting Maple Avenue to Highway 111.
Ward said he wants the commission to think about projects that could be added to the plan to help traffic flow.
“Those kinds of projects help traffic flow throughout the whole city, right?” Ward said. “I mean, you try to look at what’s continuous east, west, north, south routes. What’s the best way to get cars moving around the city?”
Widening portions of East Spring Street (Highway 70) was listed on the project. Ward said a previous study revealed that portions of East Spring Street are failing and that more are soon to fail.
“They (Study) project 49, which would be the [Highway] 111 to I-40 segment, to be a level F by 2040 if no improvements are made.”
12 projects have been completed since the plan was last updated in 2017. Ward said the city needs to conduct another street study to see which streets are currently failing to efficiently flow traffic.
Ward said many of the projects on the current plan have carried over from previous plans. Ward mentioned that one project that is still on the plan is connecting Bunker Hill Road to South Walnut Avenue under I-40.
“That’s one of the biggest challenges in the city, is north and south routes to, ” Ward said. “I mean, continuous north and south routes. So that would essentially get you all the way from the south end of town all the way up into Tech with a continuous route, which would be a game-changer.”
Ward said the city has had serious conversations with T-DOT about doing the project, and they have suggested bridging over rather than under. Ward said bridging over would likely not work due to having to clear out a wide area to construct a bridge.
Ward said another longstanding project is to one-way pair Broad Street and Spring Street from the East Triangle to the West Triangle to improve downtown traffic flow. Ward said both streets at one point were turned into one-way streets, but were ultimately removed after a couple of weeks.
“I don’t know, it may get to a point where people want to try it again,” Ward said. “There are a lot of impacts, definitely perceived impacts. Everybody who has a business believes it will hurt them going one way or the other. You know they think they will have issues out of it, but this has been in every traffic study, so it remains in the plan.”
Other notable projects in the current plan are widening West 12th Street from Mississippi Avenue to North Washington Avenue, extension of Foreman Drive from Mine Lick Creek Road and Holladay Road towards South Willow Avenue, and construction of planned access points on Tennessee Avenue.
Commission Member Jim Cobb said he had no problem with the projects that are currently on the plan. Ward said the commission will look at what other projects could be added and present an updated plan at the start of the new year.