News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Fentress County requesting assistance from T-DOT to address two intersections that are producing a high number of car accidents.
County Executive Jimmy Johnson said the county concerned about the Highway 127-Highway 296 intersection and the Highway 52-Highway 296 intersection. Johnson said work has been done to improve the 127/296 intersection in the past but the issue has never fully gone away.
“It’s kind of a difficult place to get on and off the road,” Johnson said. “There’s some yield signs that are bent and misshapen and folks don’t really yield like they should I guess. And there’s stop signs out in the middle of the median. So TDOT’s going to take a look at that, see if they can make any changes there.”
Johnson said the county is also working with Allardt to request a traffic light at the four-way intersection of 52/296. Johnson said the city recently installed stop signs at the intersection with flashing lights on them but more equipment would reduce the accidents even further.
“We were contacting hopefully T-DOT that they might be able to give them assistance with something a little bit more different, maybe overhead lights,” Johnson said. “There used to be one there and of course it got taken down for some reason. I don’t know if was just tore up or what.”
Johnson said T-DOT was very receptive to the county’s requests for aid in a recent meeting. Johnson said the department did a small study of the problematic areas right after the meeting was over.
“We’re like everyone else, we want to have it done as soon as we can get it done,” Johnson said. “But we know there’s a lot of projects TDOT has going on so if we can just in line someplace it’d be very considerate of them.”
