Public Hearing Notice: Proposed Program of Projects

The Executive Board of the Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) will hold a public hearing at its regular meeting on Wednesday, May 22, 2019 at 9:00 a.m. in the Small Assembly Room of the City-County Building, 400 Main Street, Knoxville, Tennessee, for the purpose of considering public comment both written and oral on the proposed Program of Projects (POP) funded by Fiscal Year 2019 Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Section 5307 Urbanized Area Formula Transit Grant funds and Section 5339 Bus and Bus Facilities Grant funds.  The City of Knoxville is the official designated recipient of the FTA funds.  The public involvement process, including the times established for public review and for allowing comment on the POP, follows the TPO’s Transportation Improvement Program public involvement process, as allowed by FTA and in accordance with appropriate federal transit regulations.  If there are no changes to the POP it will be considered final. a The proposed POP can be viewed on the TPO’s website at www.knoxtrans.org.  Interested persons or agencies and particularly private transportation providers are encouraged to participate in the process.  For information, to be mailed or faxed a copy of the POP, or to provide comments in advance of the meeting contact Dori Caron at the TPO at 400 Main Street, Suite 403, Knoxville, TN 37902; or by telephone at (865) 215-2694; or by e-mail at dori.caron@knoxtrans.org.  Comments submitted in advance of the meeting by 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, May 21, 2019 will be read into the minutes at the meeting. If you need assistance or accommodation for a disability, please contact the TPO and we will be glad to work with you in obliging any reasonable request.  Ph. 215-2694 or dori.caron@knoxtrans.org. When: Wednesday, May 22, 2019 at 9:00 a.m. Where: Small Assembly Room of the City-County Building, 400 Main Street, Knoxville, Tennessee

Building Safer Streets – Together

A panel of local activists and educators joined us for two Active Knox events on May 23 and 24, 2019, to discuss how communities can collaborate on building more walkable, bikeable places.
We heard from Chris Cherry, a professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at UTK, about his work with students and others to add transit benches and create safer street crossings. Tanisha Baker, College & Career Access Team Leader for Project GRAD and president of Five Points Up, spoke about walkability challenges in East Knoxville, including lack of infrastructure and concerns about crime. We also heard from Bryan Hill, a certified community planner and the Vision Zero chair for Bike Walk Knoxville’s Advisory Committee, about how other communities are using Vision Zero to collect and share data about traffic safety with the goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries. The panel shared information with about 40 members of the public on the evening of May 23 at Pellissippi State’s Magnolia Avenue campus. They also appeared before about 30 elected and appointed officials for a lunch at the Knoxville Chamber on May 24. This panel was the 11th set of events in the Active Knox speaker series, which is funded through a grant from the Tennessee Department of Health. The speaker series will resume in the fall of 2019. If you’d like to receive emails about the events, email ellen.zavisca@knoxplanning.org.