Northshore community proposes raised walkways on Frazier

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — Following the deadly crash on Frazier Avenue last fall, a leader of the Northshore Merchant Commission said they want raised pavements down the strip.

There is also concern about the safety for street parking, as vehicles are often parked in a portion of the travel lane.

Northshore community members are anxious to know what the future plans are for Frazier Avenue after several incidents in years past. They are proposing what changes they believe need to be made for the road structure and sidewalks to ensure everyone is as safe as possible.

Business owners are losing patience and believe road improvements are long overdue, even prior to the deadly crash that happened in November.

“So, what we would like to see are raised pedestrian walkways at the intersections of Frazier and Tremont and for us in Woodland. And what that would be is just the entire intersection would be raised up ten inches to allow for pedestrians to be safer… they can be seen better. And then cars will physically have to slow down to go up and over these areas,” explained Jessica Dimitru, owner of Art Creations.

Dimitru, and other members of the Northshore Merchant Commission, claim that dropping the speed limit from 30 to 25 has not made any improvements on getting drivers to slow down.

“Unless you have law enforcement down here monitoring it 24/7, which in all fairness they don’t have time to do.  They have the entire city of Chattanooga to patrol and police. They can’t just have somebody stationed at the Walnut Street Bridge to watch and see how fast everybody’s driving. So, what we need to do is just slow the traffic down. And this would be a very inexpensive but very efficient way of doing that,” Dimitru said.

While speeding is a main concern, Dimitru added that the lack of space for street parking for delivery trucks is also a huge problem. She says vehicles are often parked halfway in the right lane, which forces drivers to swerve into the other lanes.

“When we talked about the lane closure, going to one lane each way in the turn lane… I think that something that wasn’t taken into consideration is that there’s so many businesses up and down Frazier. We normally all get shipments from an 18-wheeler truck that comes on pallets. They take up an entire line of traffic when they start to deliver our inventory,” Dimitru added. “So, if it’s one lane each way, there’s no way for them to stop.”

Dimitru added that members of the commission are considering Frazier Avenue to be changed to two total lanes rather than four. But it then raises concerns for the street parking space.

Needless to say, the public wants a change to be made on Frazier.