http://connect.chattanooga.gov/mlkblvd or call CDOT at 423-643-5950.
The city is repaving Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, a 45-day project that will be done in four phases and close certain sections of the street during each phase. Now underway, the project will affect how some UTC students get to campus.
The repaving takes place between Georgia and Central avenues and will reduce the number of lanes from two in each direction to one. There will be a center turn lane and bike lanes on either side of the boulevard.
The redesign also will create about 40 new on-street parking spaces between University and Peeples avenues.
City officials say the redesign will slow traffic on M.L. King but not significantly.
“There should be little travel time difference during the vast majority of the day,” says Blythe Bailey, administrator for Chattanooga’s Department of Transportation. “Instead of a highway in a neighborhood, we’ll have a place where people are safer and feel more comfortable.”
Mayor Andy Berke acknowledges the project will “create some temporary inconvenience,” but says residents and businesses along M.L. King have been asking that changes be made for some time.
