By Shannon McFarlin News Director
Paris, Tenn.–There was a full house for Thursday evening’s Paris City Commission, with people concerned about ongoing downtown crosswalk dangers. Many of those in attendance were Commercial Bank & Trust employees who themselves had been hit by cars or experienced near-misses.
A bank employee, Kathy Sadler, was hit in mid-February at the Brewer-Wood Street intersection walking to work in and passed away a few days later.
Several in attendance voiced the sentiment that “Something has to be done” about the downtown situation before more tragedies occur.
City officials outlined plans that are already underway to combat the problem.
Paris Mayor Kathy Ray said, “We feel your urgency.” Noting that she herself was a friend of Kathy Sadler, Ray shared that she also has almost been hit downtown. “We understand completely,” she said.
City Manager Kim Foster said the city is already working on strategies for dealing with the situation, including increased police presence, posted at intersections in the early morning and late afternoons; removal of some parking spaces close to intersections to add visibility; development of an educational campaign that will include video prepared by Crove Media for free.
In addition, the city will begin utilizing flags to alert drivers of the pedestrians crossing the streets. The way that will work, she explained, the city will supply red flags in hanging containers at all intersections. Pedestrians will carry the flags as they cross the street, waving them at motorists to make sure they are seen. The pedestrians will then place the flags in the containers at the other intersection when they complete crossing the street for others to use.
She also said a few seconds of red will be added to the traffic lights to allow more time for people to cross.
The flags and containers are currently being constructed by the city’s public works department and they should be ready for implementation by the end of March.
Foster said a public meeting with TDOT also is being arranged, at which the public can voice concerns and ask questions about the downtown situation. The city was TDOT grants to alleviate the situation some time ago and the checklist of items that still must be completed before TDOT begins working on the projects is long. “Grant projects by nature take a long time,” she said.
In her progress report on the grants, she noted that preliminary right of way plans continue, with the required historical surveys completed. The historical survey was sent to TDOT’s environmental department for review and early utility coordination is completed. Response to the 2018 grant is still being awaited from the following agencies: air & noise, archeology, historic, TDEC, USFWS and TWRA.
“The problem is distracted driving”, Foster said. “It is a distracted driving issue. Believe me, I’ve lost sleep over this, too, and we’re trying to come up with anything we can.”
Placing Paris Police officers at intersections in the early morning and late afternoons has already started, she noted, but said, “We’re sacrificing some of the police department to do that. We can’t pull officers from the school zones, so we’re having to take investigators from their desk jobs for that. But it is good to have the police presence.”
Foster and Police Chief Ricky Watson are working on a plan to increase the use of electric bikes for officers downtown, since the bikes are easier to navigate than patrol vehicles. “But only one of our officers is certified for the electric bikes right now, but we’d like to put officers at each intersection,” she said.
Removal of parking spaces around the court square will be happening. “That was part of our ongoing plan from the beginning, but we knew there would be grumbling from the public about taking away parking spaces, but we’re not going to wait any longer.”
The spaces that will be removed are those closest to the intersections to increase visibility of motorists and pedestrians. “We’re also going to put orange poles at the intersections, anything to increase attention to the intersections,” she said.
During the public comment section, Tammy Walker, who currently works at Commercial Bank and previously was the city meter reader, recounted close calls she has had, noting that her daughter had been hit crossing a downtown steet, too.
She asked why work on the grants has taken so long and asked for “walk, don’t walk” flashing lights at the intersections. She said she would like to see more downtown cameras and see more ticketing of drivers who hit or almost hit pedestrians.
“I said before it’s going to take someone dying before something is done and that’s what’s happened,” Walker said. “I’m not trying to sound rude. That’s not my intent. But I am passionate about this.”
Willa Brown said she was hit by a car crossing East Wood St. September 9 even though she was wearing a bright red shirt. She said she still is in physical therapy. “Something has got to be done. We have to quit putting it off. It’s cost and life and it could have been any one of you.”
Bank Employee Anita Ostrom asked for a show of hands from her co-workers in the audience of who had been hit or almost hit and almost all of the dozens at the meeting put their hands up.
“We have a beautiful downtown”, she said, and want to encourage people to utilize it, “but what can we do to help this along and to not have anyone else hit?”
Foster said the public comment meeting with TDOT will be arranged for the next couple weeks and the public will be notified of the date and place.
In other business during the meeting:
–Foster gave updates of various projects, including the Downtown Improvement grant (ten projects have been completed, with three more yet to be completed); the sidewalk project on Wilson and Patriot (process for officially closing the project has been started); multimodal access grant for Mineral Wells/Tyson St. upgrades and sidewalks (waiting on responses from TWRA USACE, Archeology, Historic Preservation, NAC).
–City Finance Director Traci Shannon reported retail sales tax for the first half of the fiscal year has been strong. Eight business licenses were issued in January.
Photo: City Manager Kim Foster displays one of the red flags that will be installed at all intersections downtown for pedestrians. Shannon McFarlin photo.