Northpoint Boulevard Is The Worst Road In Chattanooga - And Response (5)

  • Friday, March 24, 2017

If you drive in Hixson, you too have had the honor of driving the worst road in Chattanooga.  A small portion of the road has signs up as a private road beginning at the entrance to The Home-a-Way going south to the Suntrust Bank. That section of the road is owned by those property owners.  

The city of Chattanooga has patched holes over and over, also paying to re-stripe. If this road is private then no one should want to patronize Home Depot, The Home-a-Way, Suntrust Bank, Regions Bank, and several small businesses that rent until they honor the ownership of roadway by maintaining this small section of road.

The police departments and emergency responders all use this road daily. Who is actually responsible and who can be held accountable for repairing this roadway?  No one can maintain their lane.

Please, will someone tell the city mayor to fix this problem of many many years.

Rick Rutherford 

* * * 

I have had nightmares where Northpoint Boulevard- just ends with a cliff, dropping into molten lava.  I thought it was funny. 

On a serious note, about it being a private road; I've been seeing a lot in the news about zoning and short term rentals, bear with me here. From my perspective, it seems to be just complicating something that could be simple. Perhaps the Home-a-Way, or one of those other businesses but probably Home-a-Way, is ordinanced (?) into owning the road, but are actually not interested or in no position or whatever.

Clearly I do not have even a flimsy grasp on the complexities of property/zoning/infrastructure/business laws... But it just occurred to me that maybe that's the case: Home-a-Way "should" fix it because it's "their" private road, but it's only a private road because they couldn't operate on a public one due to zoning laws or some other such hoop, and it's otherwise not Home-a-Way's practice to go about paying for infrastructure repairs? If that's the case, one would think a business doesn't usually agree to such a condition if they aren't prepared to meet it. It's like an unsolved mystery, isn't it? 

Just a thought, posed to the fine people who check this column. If someone wants to answer my questions I'll be appreciative, but it isn't necessary.

Elizabeth Rogers 

* * *

People. 

Northpoint Boulevard is a road over private property. No different than driving over the parking lot at Northgate Mall or your driveway from the street to your garage. 

Nobody is making you drive over it. If you do not like it do not drive over it. 

Period. 

Todd Tyler 

* * *

Northpoint Boulevard may have been a private road at one time. but as more businesses were built it became a cut-through from Hwy-153 to Hixson Pike. then the city extended it all the way to Hamill Road. Now it is a cut through all the way over.

Well now, does that make it a private road all the way from Hwy-153 to Hamill Road or a public road all the way? Or half private and half public?

I believe when the city extended Northpoint Boulevard all the way through, they bought the private part because they made it a public road. But that is just my opinion.

Melvin Gillilan 

* * * 

I,  for one, avoid Northpoint Boulevard like pollen and try not to use it to get to Home Depot or SunTrust. Perhaps we should encourage Chattanooga City Councilman Ken Smith to come to our aid. After all, Mr. Smith has subtly announced he is taking a serious look at a mayoral run in 2021. If he could enable a solution to the Northpoint problem, he deserves to be mayor.

After he fixes that, maybe he can fix the traffic lights on Highway 58. Two minutes is an eternity when one is waiting for a light to change. 

Ralph Hetzler 

* * * 

I again echo the sentiments of all of the readers, save for Mr. Tyler. 

Six months or so ago, I expressed the same thing regarding the horrible conditions of that road.
For the life of me, I don’t understand why someone would actually defend the abysmal condition of North Point Boulevard, but someone did when I wrote as well. 

While Mr. Tyler is correct in that “officially” it’s not a road and more of a cut-through, the upkeep is the job of the businesses between the last McDonald’s entrance, down to the driveway of Suntrust.  However every morning I see a school bus use North Point as a ‘cut-through’ on its morning route. Additionally, the city has a bus stop located on North Point, just outside of Blood Assurance.

If it is really a ‘cut-through’ and not an official road, then why do we have both school buses and city transportation using this as daily routes? It’s time to stop defending this grey area and hold the city accountable to fix the road. 

Gary Snodgrass


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