North Broadway is a mess for drivers. What is going on with all the construction?

Seeing almost 17,000 cars a day, North Broadway is one of Knoxville’s busiest arterial roads.

For many North Knoxville residents, that main thoroughfare has become one giant maze of construction and detours.

So what exactly is going on?

Quite a lot, actually. Let’s get into it.

The project disrupting the most traffic at the moment is KUB’s replacement of the 90-year-old water pipes under North Broadway. The work should be completed sometime this month but might spill into April.

By replacing the pipes now, ahead of the paving schedule, it ensures that KUB won’t mess up any newly laid asphalt.

Next is the Old Broadway Sidewalks Project, which will construct about 3,800 feet of sidewalks and greenways along Old Broadway.

The paths will extend from the northern intersection with Broadway to the intersection of Mineral Springs Avenue.

This project will provide a multimodal facility that connects Fountain City to the neighborhoods south of Sharp’s Ridge and will separate users from the heavily traveled interchange of Broadway at I-640.

Planned by Barge Design Solutions Inc. and built by Whaley Construction LLC, it has a current construction contract price of $2,544,793, and is expected to be complete in July.

Also conceptualized by Barge Design Solutions is the Broadway Streetscapes Project. This initiative will create a shared-use path extending from First Creek Greenway, from near Cecil Avenue, to near Woodland Avenue.

Upgrading the efficiency of the public transit system is the Broadway Transit Signal Priority Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (quite a mouthful). This project, designed by WSP USA, will create an accelerated bus corridor along North Broadway and South Hall of Fame Drive, as well as upgrade bus stop facilities, benches, shelters, sidewalks, and intelligent transportation system (ITS) elements for passenger information dissemination, comfort, and security. This project will be out for bid in the spring of 2027.

In tandem with that project, the city will install new fiber optic communications and new signal timing patterns along North Broadway. Fiber optic communications will route to the city’s Public Works Service Center for better monitoring and maintenance of the city’s signalization network. This project is called the Citywide Advanced Traffic Management System Project, and was designed by Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc.

Many of these projects aim to address the issues that pedestrians, cyclists and transit users face while attempting to navigate the extremely hostile landscape. With the intersection of North Broadway and Hall of Fame existing in the same form it has since the 1960s, the car is prioritized as the main mode of travel.

Many have called for updates to the corridor and improvements like those found on Central. However, according to Jennifer Searle, special program manager for the City of Knoxville, “North Broadway is a state route and under the jurisdiction of the Tennessee Department of Transportation. Any changes the City of Knoxville proposes will require the approval of TDOT.”

The city did produce the Broadway Corridor Improvement Study back in 2022, which produced many creative solutions to North Broadway that have since stalled.

Comments and questions regarding the improvement of North Broadway can be sent to TDOT.Comments@tn.gov.