Residents Concerned about Speeding in St. Elmo

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- Pedestrian safety has been in the minds of many Chattanoogans recently since a fatal crash killed a mother and her baby two weeks ago on Frazier Avenue.

One neighborhood association is concerned about the same incident happening there.

The St. Elmo Historic District is a major neighborhood on the southern border of Chattanooga with Georgia.

As such, St. Elmo Avenue is a major thoroughfare for drivers coming out of Walker County into Chattanooga.

One challenge face driving along St. Elmo Avenue is how quickly the speed limit changes.

For example along State Highway 193 coming out of Walker County, the speed limit is 55 miles per hour. 

However, as they cross the state line into Chattanooga and into St. Elmo, the speed limit quickly changes to 25, under half of what many drivers were previously going.

Despite this posted rapid drop in speed, the Community Association of Historic St. Elmo says they are still seeing excessive speeding along Saint Elmo Avenue.

The road is designated as Tennessee State Highway 17 through most of the neighborhood, which lands it under the purview of TDOT for its maintenance. 

This, the Community Association, says is an issue in the maintenance of the road, in a letter they have sent to the Chattanooga City Council.

In the letter, they cite four separate incidents along St. Elmo Avenue in the past year that raise concerns for them, including one in November that saw a vehicle end up in a front yard.

They have outlined several requests to the City Council to deal with the speeding they say they are seeing along St. Elmo Avenue.

Among the requests are for Chattanooga Police to create a traffic enforcement plan, CDOT to create a new traffic study on daily traffic flows, install new traffic enforcement cameras, work with T-DOT to potentially redesign the road, and for C-DOT to potentially take responsibility for the road.

We attempted to contact the association for further comment on these matters but did not hear back from them on Friday.

One mother in St. Elmo, who wanted to remain anonymous, told us her main concern was crossing the busy street, saying motorists are often not stopping for pedestrians in crosswalks.

We did get a response from the city of Chattanooga, who say they are working with the Community Association to look at all possible options.

We are also waiting to hear back from T-DOT as well.