If you feel like taking a walk down Gay Street today, you're likely to find yourself actually taking a walk down Gay Street. Due to overlapping construction schedules at the Miller Building and the old J.C. Penney building on the 400 block, stretches of sidewalk on both sides of the street are closed. (They have signs unhelpfully directing you to cross to the other side.) Unlike some bigger cities more accustomed to accommodating pedestrians, Knoxville does not require contractors to provide alternative walkways when they close a sidewalk. The result is that, for the moment, you are forced into the traffic lanes themselves. These are, of course, the same traffic lanes currently seeing increased vehicle counts because of cars diverted from the closed Henley Bridge.
To be fair, it's not that difficult for your average able-bodied person to carefully walk between the barriers and the cars for the 30 or 40 feet. But what if you're like the uncertain older woman who my colleague Jack Neely spotted yesterday, nervously watching for a break in traffic before trying to make her way down the street? Or if you, as I often am, are shepherding young children up the street to Mast? If you have a baby stroller, or even worse, are in a wheelchair, you end up in the middle of the block, either having to jump the curb or go back to the nearest curb cut and roll the length of the block in the middle of the street. Rick Emmett, the city's downtown coordinator, acknowledges these issues have come up a lot recently, with work going on both on Union and Wall avenues--two main approaches to Market Square. But the current Gay Street situation where both sidewalks are closed at once is unusual. "It's a scheduling thing," Emmett says. "It's one we certainly need to stay aware of." At the very least, he says, it would probably be good for the city Engineering Department to keep a master map showing which sidewalks will be closed when, possibly highlighting such conflicts.
For now, though, all Emmett can say is: Watch your step.
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