Louisville elected officials are urging town residents to speak out against a proposed infrastructure project that would widen Louisville Road to accommodate truck traffic. The project, which is rooted in the need to update roads for the new Smith & Wesson facility, would widen lanes and add a shoulder between Proffitt Springs Road and Topside Road.
The Tennessee Department of Transportation says the project will increase safety along the corridor and streamline the road for future traffic growth. Construction isn’t scheduled to begin until 2027.
A resolution condemning the project, passed unanimously by the Louisville Board of Mayor and Aldermen April 9, claims the road work would negatively impact neighboring residential areas and eliminate access to businesses and the Louisville Post Office. In a letter addressed to citizens, Louisville Mayor Jill Pugh urged residents to send feedback to TDOT through comment cards available at the town hall.
The deadline to fill out a card is April 18.
“We are currently at the crossroads of change in Louisville,” wrote Pugh. “Will we be a traffic pass-through town for the businesses and apartments built at our borders? Or will we be a town that develops to serve the citizens of our town?”
Construction
The proposed changes, which are part of TDOT’s State Industrial Access Program, would widen lanes along the stretch of Louisville Road to 12 feet and add a 6-foot shoulder with a curb and gutter on both sides.
Mark Nagi, regional communications officer for TDOT, said the adjustments would improve road safety with a budget of $21 million.
“The widening of shoulders to 8 feet decreases crash rates by 42% when compared to a roadway with no shoulders,” he wrote in an email to The Daily Times. “The department has designed these improvements to maximize increased safety while minimizing impact to property owners along State Route 334.”
Other benefits, Nagi said, would include improved storm drainage and additional signal capacity. The construction duration for similar projects is usually 24-30 months.
Jeff Muir, director of communications for the Blount Partnership, said the proposed work came from planning for trucks from Smith & Wesson to safely share the road with other traffic, and to accommodate the additional stream of employees. The firearm manufacturer wasn’t involved in the process, said Muir, but the road work was part of the deal for the business to relocate to Blount County.
“It’s just not conducive to heavy traffic right now,” he said. “This way, if you’ve got to make an evasive maneuver, you don’t end up in a ditch.”
This is the least expensive option to make the road safe, he said.
It’s too early in the process to know right of way and eminent domain specifics, according to Nagi, but graphics of the project displayed at the Louisville town hall show the proposed right of way eating into driveways and lawns. Pugh said she felt the right of way effects on several properties would be “very significant.”
Representation
In a phone interview April 16, Pugh said she was bothered by the fact that Louisville wasn’t included in conversations about the proposed project until TDOT hosted a public hearing last month. Satellite images demonstrating the proposed changes appeared about three years old, she said, but the first most Louisville residents heard of the project was March 28.
“The biggest thing is we know we’re going to have to change, but we wanted a seat at the table in deciding what happens to our community,” she said.
The problem, she said, is Louisville has less than 5,000 residents. That means it doesn’t qualify for its own representation when planning transportation projects like this. Neighboring Maryville and Alcoa do, along with the Blount County government.
A representative of the Blount County Mayor’s Office estimated a “few dozen” people had called about the proposed Louisville Road work. Louisville officials sent a copy of the resolution opposing the TDOT work to Tennessee State Senator Art Swann, who Pugh said presented the resolution to department leadership and requested they communicate with the town.
A meeting between department officials and town leadership is in the works.
There’s further confusion over who requested the improvements. Pugh said TDOT presented the project to the town as a project “for the city of Alcoa,” but Alcoa staff told The Daily Times Tuesday they were unaware of any city involvement. Previous TDOT work at the intersection of Proffitt Springs Road and Louisville Road saw some Alcoa involvement since the intersection falls within Alcoa city limits, but the majority of the space affected by the proposed project would be in Louisville.
Since industrial access program projects require an application to be considered, Pugh has requested a copy of the application to find out who asked the state to work on Louisville Road. The Daily Times asked a TDOT spokesperson who applied for the road improvements but did not receive a response by press time Tuesday.
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