There’s a busy two-lane road in Madison where several drivers have died in crashes and pedestrians have long struggled to make safe crossings to two schools.
Now it will be one of 15 Davidson County intersections to get new signals and turn lanes — and better sidewalks.
“There was a fatality here of a young teenage schoolgirl that hit home to a lot of people. And as you see, the cross is still there,” Metro Councilman Bill Pridemore said Wednesday as officials gathered to announce the projects.
Pridemore said the yellow flashing light above the crossing of Neelys Bend Road and Cheyenne Boulevard hasn’t been sufficient, and that the road improvement is welcome.
The other crossing to get immediate attention will be D.B Todd Boulevard at Albion Street near Fisk University and Meharry Medical College in North Nashville. That stretch handles even more traffic than Neelys Bend and a high daily pedestrian count, officials said.
Overhauls to the intersections will each cost between $500,000 and $1 million. The other 11 have not yet been announced.
Mayor Megan Barry said the effort comes after a string of other transportation announcements, including traffic signal prioritization at 550 intersections, newly available real-time city bus data and an ongoing rewrite of the sidewalks and bikeways master plan.
“When our intersections don’t function well either for pedestrians or buses or bicyclists or cars, we give up something that’s really essential to the life of our city,” Barry said.
An earlier version of this section referred incorrectly to the number of intersections to be improved.
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