Greeneville working on improvement plan for Andrew Johnson Highway
GREENEVILLE, Tenn. (WJHL) – The Town of Greeneville is working to create a five-year improvement plan to address current and future traffic congestion on Andrew Johnson Highway as growth in the town increases.
“We’re trying to come up with a five-year plan that will address streets, signals, traffic signals, just the best way to get people to and from locations on the east end of Andrew Johnson Highway,” said City Manager Todd Smith.
Smith told News Channel 11 that Greeneville has seen an increase of people moving to the area and more businesses setting up shop. The first step of the plan is to start small, working on minor issues such as signalization.
“If we can get the traffic signals talking to each other so that flow moves more smoothly, it’s a fairly easy fix that solves some immediate problems that we have,” Smith said.
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The five-year improvement plan consists of widening roads, adding more traffic signals, increasing turn lanes, and more.
Jacob Hoffman lives in Greeneville and works in food delivery service. He said that it’s not necessarily traffic that is the issue.
“Traffic’s sort of always been an issue, this town was sort of built before cars were a thing,” Hoffman said. “I feel like it’s more of a driver common sense issue.”
Hoffman said that he has seen an increase in traffic in the area and that widening the roads would help traffic flow but major construction might not be needed.
“There’s always contingency plans that you can use,” Hoffman said. “We don’t necessarily have to throw out a whole significant chunk of the budget to drastically alter these things.”
The five-year improvement plan will be further discussed with Greeneville City Council members during their meeting on Tuesday.
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