Susan Alcorn, executive fall guy of the Tennessee Infrastructure Alliance, encouraged us to "drive like a local" in order to "to move people from interstate travel to the less congested, less stressful and certainly more beautiful routes." This woman has obviously never visited Chattanooga, where the alternatives are SR-153, road rage central due to it being totally "less stressful," Wilcox Boulevard to see if you win the carjacking lottery of the day, and Amnicola Highway to destroy the suspension on your car just before getting rear-ended by a Ford Probe driven by an uninsured Chatt State student (personal experience). The rest of them (Glass Street, Ringgold Road, Brainerd Road, Broad Street, Rossville Boulevard, MLK, etc.) are just as congested as the interstate.
In light of the recently demonstrated lethality of the I-24/75 interchange, it's obvious the combination of nepo babies and diversity hires running our infrastructure planning have marched into our municipal home, completely trashed our travel patterns at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, and are now demanding that we just don't use what we paid for. The government should be lying prostrate before the public, in sackcloth and ash, wailing and crying in apology for the abject stupidity of these projects and its stupidity in project approval without any infrastructure development.
It's only going to get worse: you can't just randomly build huge apartment complexes with thousands of parking spaces and not expect roads to get clogged around them.
Chris Wicker
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After reading Mr. Chris Wicker’s opinion about the beautiful routes and driving like a local he has absolutely hit the nail on the head.
Chattanooga is a driving nightmare every day in just about all directions. I still commute there one or two times a week and it is maddening.
Having been fortunate enough to retire several years back and not having to be in Chattanooga daily I moved my primary residence out of the city of Chattanooga. Actually after the Mayor Burke fiasco and then “Pothole Tim” being elected the first time. I’d had enough of the bicycle lanes and street narrowing among other issues.
I sold out of Chattanooga and now I’m down to one property in Chattanooga on the southside that I still frequent. I left for less taxes and better roads after having to continuously have repairs done to my vehicles from Davidson Road in East Brainerd when I lived in that congested area and the ridiculous property taxes. Just wait until this next hike after Marty’s reappraisals.
With that said, the interstate is pretty much a no-go most of the time unless you don’t care what time you need to get somewhere. I definitely no longer ever attempt to go past Hwy 153 exit to west 24 into town. I usually try to drive I-75 south to Chattanooga to Hwy 153 if possible.
What I have done though is download the app TriStar Traffic which shows all the traffic cameras from Athens, Tn. to Chattanooga and surrounding areas including Hwy 153. It is a big help but traffic can snarl in minutes so it’s a crap shoot if you’re going to get into the city without delay.
I have used all the roads you’ve mentioned from Wilcox, Amnicola, Bonnie Oaks, Shallowford, Glass Street and more trying to get downtown.
Just this past two weekends ago coming from my home 50 miles away to Chattanooga with the Ironman event going on it took an hour and an half. The additional minutes to get to downtown was when I made the mistake of getting caught on Riverfront Parkway and failed to go left at Wilcox Boulevard and got stuck in the Ironman traffic and a car was broken down in the only lane for traffic. No CPD to be found anywhere to direct traffic. Good grief 35 minutes just trying to get to Main Street from around the Parkway. Well at least I was going slow enough from the Boathouse to Lindsay Street not to knock the alignment out on my vehicle from that section of horrible pavement.
I have found that many times the best route from I-75 south is the “drive local” view in which I get on Hwy 58 in Meigs County rather than taking a chance on I-75. Then from there it’s a choice of Amnicola or another local route meandering through town. This route has paid off many times after having looked at the traffic app and seeing the congestion and stoppage that occurs from I-75 at Cleveland southbound into Chattanooga on a regular day.
The Tennessee highway infrastructure is so far behind that I don’t see any foreseeable resolution to the traffic problems within the Chattanooga and surrounding area. Years of failed planning and road construction has created this issue. There needs to be a bypass around Chattanooga but that would take years to complete based on TDOT’s track record.
You, Chris, are also correct on the construction of housing without regard to infrastructure. Property now is being bought by the square footage rather than a single family home sized lot that is if you can find any in the city.
I’ve lived all over Chattanooga throughout the years until many areas were way overdeveloped. North Shore and East Brainerd as examples and now the planning folks are trying to increase density even in parts of rural Hamilton County as discussed in another article. Just look at Ooltewah, over developed and it’s a traffic nightmare as well that far out.
So Chattanooga local drivers do need to seek better routes into and out of the area but finding them is the issue. I just feel sorry for those that still have to commute daily and are trying to use the interstate system. Hopefully more lives won’t be lost due to the rolling roadblocks and hazardous driving conditions created by poor planning and too many travelers on the Chattanooga interchanges. Good luck, folks.
Arch Tinker