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Officials detail sidewalk, smart-signal and all-access corridor rollout; Main Gallatin and Nolensville timelines outlined
Summary
NDOT and Choose How You Move staff described projects and delivery practices including sidewalks already completed or starting this summer, 115 smart-signal hardware upgrades this year, the first complete-streets breakground on Chestnut Street, and project-development steps for Main Gallatin and Nolensville corridors. (Derek Haggerty; Michael Briggs)
Derek Haggerty, interim deputy director with NDOT, and Michael Briggs, deputy chief program officer for Choose How You Move, briefed council members on project delivery and capital rollout priorities tied to the mayor’s delivery agenda.
Haggerty said staff are shifting from moving funding year-to-year to spending allocations in the year they are received to avoid erosion of purchasing power. “Those dollars have lost probably 12 to 15% of their purchasing power over the years,” Haggerty said in explaining the motivation to re-time expenditures for better stewardship.
Project examples in motion include the recently completed July Drive sidewalk and several sidewalk kickoffs two weeks earlier. Haggerty listed additional sidewalks slated to begin this month, including Oak Valley, Nashborough Boulevard, Revels Drive, Benton Avenue and Fort Negley (anticipated to break ground in July). The office reported just under $21 million in active purchase orders and about $99 million in initiated projects.
On smart signals, Haggerty said 115 hardware upgrades are planned this year (83 downtown and 32 on Nolensville and Harding Place) and emphasized that the upgrades provide sensing, communication and control hardware while operational strategies — which vary by location and time of day — will produce benefits for pedestrians and bus movement. Jesse Turner of Metro ITS said fiber installation is being planned corridor-by-corridor and that interim cellular connectivity may be used where needed, but fiber will be the long-term solution.
Briggs described All Access Corridors as 54 miles of high-volume streets that integrate frequent bus service, strategically located transit lanes, smarter signals and safety improvements. He said Main Gallatin Pike (project development from Fifth Street to Bradley Parkway) is in project development while repaving continues, and Nolensville Pike (a seven-mile corridor) will move into formal community engagement later this year after the MTA board executes a contract for project development. Briggs said staff will stand up a community advisory board to vet ideas during the multiyear process.
The chair and council members asked detailed questions about timing, school impacts on Edge Hill construction, prioritization criteria for signal upgrades (readiness, safety, efficiency and fiber availability), and use of native plants in streetscape work. Staff said community meetings and detailed plan sets are available online for review. The joint update concluded with no formal actions taken.
