Your Input Helps Shape our City

Anyone who has been reading my columns for a while knows how much of an advocate I am on public input. After all, it’s our job to create and manage a city that you want to live in! We now have another opportunity for you to give your input.

The Elizabethton Regional Planning Commission has been working hard to update the City’s Major Thoroughfare Plan. Essentially this is a plan that classifies every road in the city and helps determine where future roadways need to go. We use this plan to work with developers to dedicate the appropriate rights-of-way and it also serves as a basis for working with the regional transportation planning agency to get new transportation projects completed. Needless to say, this plan serves as the bones and arteries of the city.

In the proposed plan, the subcommittee is proposing some improvements to Southside Road to make it more of a throughway. This will help provide better connections for residents on the southern side of the city and provide another east to west corridor in the city to help alleviate traffic congestion on West Elk Avenue/Broad Street and G Street. The subcommittee has also proposed some improvements to Milligan Highway to help make it safer for vehicles using the road and bicyclists.

One thing that is new to the Thoroughfare Plan is the inclusion of pedestrian and bicycle trails. The subcommittee has reviewed and considered where existing trail systems are located and where new potential trial systems should be located. Additionally, this plan includes redesigns of streets to better allow for bicycles and better buffering between roadways and sidewalks (so you don’t feel like you’re walking in traffic while on the sidewalk). These new elements really speak to the emphasis the Planning Commission has placed on making Elizabethton a more pedestrian and bike friendly community.

You input on this plan will help guide the Planning Commission and the city as it develops over the next 10-20 years. You input doesn’t have to be long or lengthy and the format is open-house style so you don’t have to speak in front of anyone and can come and go as you please. Just stop by on your way home from work, learn a little about how road systems work, review the proposed improvements, and provide us with a comment as to whether you like it, don’t like it, or would rather see something else. By providing feedback now, you can help us make this community grow into exactly the community you want to live in. Let’s talk about it!