New ‘hardened centerlines’ at Knoxville intersection boost pedestrian safety

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — Six months after a West High School student was struck by a car crossing Sutherland Avenue, Vision Zero has made improvements to the road to protect future pedestrians.

According to Vision Zero, a multi-national road traffic safety project, the student did everything right. Even though the walk signal was on, she still suffered injures her mother told 6 News will impact her for the rest of her life.

“She was crossing in the crosswalk when the crosswalk sign was on, ” said Vision Zero coordinator Cody Gentry. “She did everything correctly that, as a pedestrian, you’re supposed to do. And she was still struck by a vehicle.”

This left Vision Zero questioning how to improve the crosswalk’s safety. Eventually they landed on a process known as centerline hardening. By adding raised rubber curbing along the yellow centerline and adding ‘curb bulb-out measures’ near the sidewalks, they say it will encourage drivers to turn at slower speeds and make pedestrians more visible.

“The overall goal with this centerline hardening is to slow those turning vehicles down,” said Gentry. “Obviously we still want people to make those turns, but doing that at a more closer to a right angle and at a slower speed, that’ll help make the pedestrian a lot more visible. So then crossing is ultimately a lot safer.”

As someone who lives just across from the Sutherland and Tobler intersection, Tim Tittle said this improvement is long overdue

“I’ve seen some close calls but it’s mostly people not paying attention, on both sides,” he said.

Tittle said the centerline hardening helps drivers pay more attention to people crossing, making him feel safer.

“I do think it’s needed. Yes, it slows people down, makes them hesitate turning the corner,” he said. “A lot of people turn the corner at fairly good speeds and you have no choice but to slow down now.”

As part of their goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and severe injuries on roads by 2040, Vision Zero wants to ensure no one is ever hit again.

“With those students, so many of them walking to school using that, we want to make this as safe as possible,” said Gentry. “So it happened once, we’re willing to see that, learn from it and use something like this to get it on the ground as quick as possible to prevent that from happening in the future.”

While this is the first intersection in Knoxville to have centerline hardening added to it. Gentry said they hope to add similar projects like this to roads across the city.

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