Boring Road closure has residents on both sides
Boring Road has been closed to through traffic since June.
“They’re getting ready to build 30 homes in Stonemeade [subdivision],” said Sharon Trotter, who wants Boring Road reopened and widened. “This will be a problem.”
Trotter spoke with aldermen and others before the workshop.
As an educator, Trotter said she knows there will be schoolchildren with asthma and other medical conditions who could require immediate emergency medical treatment, making access for emergency vehicles a concern.
“I’m generally in favor of closing Boring Road on [the Kingston Pike] end; however, if the faculty, the parents picking up kids, if they could come up part of Boring Road and connect with the back parking lot — in other words, going all the way from the access road to the Villages, their driveway and all the way across — and hit Boring Road at that spot, and then above that, Boring Road would be closed, that would give them more access to Kingston Pike,” said Steve Cottrell, a Boring Road resident who taught in the Knox County school system for 34 years.
“You could also move the traffic light that’s across from Ingles and Federal Boulevard and put that at Boring Road,” he added.
“I generally would agree with closing the road,” Boring Road resident Jerold Johnson said. “Some people think for safety reasons and so forth, but the sheriff’s office said it doesn’t make a meaningful difference if that road is closed.
“When I moved there last November, I had no idea the amount of traffic that was on Boring Road, and most of it cuts through from Kingston Pike to Smith Road,” he said. “And, if that road gets widened, that’s going to get a lot worse … a lot of people walk on that road; a lot of people have pets on that road. There are small children out playing in front of those houses. It’s just a safety issue for myself and my wife.”
Boring Lane resident Brittany Moore said she has 50 acres backing up to Country Manor, Country Way, Boring Road and Village Green.
“My access to that comes from Boring Road from Kingston Pike,” she said. “I can’t get trailers; I can’t get equipment to cut hay into the property without coming up from Kingston Pike because of the way the road is cut, where it splits off to Boring Lane.
“So that’s my first concern with any cut-off or any right-in, right-out of Boring Road,” Moore said, suggesting closing the road east of the bus loop.
“It eliminates cut-through traffic of Boring Road,” she said.
Andrew Duison said he also needs to use the Boring Road-Kingston Pike intersection because of large vehicles.
At Smith Road, “when you get down to turn right into that blind curve, turning left up to the lane, you got the power pole, mailboxes [impairing the line of sight onto Smith Road],” he said.
Burney Circle resident Paul Johnson proposed keeping Boring Road open with right-in, right-out access.
“Boring Road should remain open to the public for public safety and for residents and emergency vehicles,” he said. “We as residents of Baldwin Park and other areas, which will now be Stonemeade coming in there soon, need two ways in and out, and one of the policies of the Town of Farragut is to have multiple ways out. That was a new policy instituted a number of years back.”
Town engineer Darryl Smith said the Board is considering four options: keep Boring Road closed; make Boring Road at Kingston Pike a right-in, right-out intersection; reconstruct Boring Road from about 300 feet east of the rear school entrance to Kingston Pike; or take no action for now.
