Murray city officials are moving forward with plans to modify one of Murray's busiest thoroughfares after months of speculation about the future of the project.
Thursday night, the Murray City Council unanimously approved a resolution to convert 16th street into a boulevard-style road with fewer pedestrian crossings and a raised hedgerow or median fence to block jaywalkers.
16th cuts through the western half of Murray State University campus and sees some 7,000 vehicles and 12,000 pedestrians daily. The high level of vehicular traffic has led to safety concern for students crossing between classes.
Talks on how to mitigate traffic flow on the 2-lane road started years ago but just recently came to fruition when the city used state funds to hire BFW Engineers of Paducah to conduct a feasibility report and options for altering the road. Some of these initial optionsincluded an over-under bridge and an alternate route circling to the west of campus behind the Science Complex.
The city and BFW held a show-and-tell-style public forum in September last year to gain feedback on the options. However, a lack of consensus led the council to shelve the plans and start anew.
The approved plan turns the street into a widened boulevard with fewer pedestrian crossings and a fence or hedgerow down the median.
BFW Engineer and Project Manager Tim Choate says the city and university got behind this plan because it would allow for optional extras like a bike lane and bus stop while addressing the main safety concern:
“Obviously what we’re trying to do is confine pedestrians to those designated crossings," said Choate. "So what the boulevard concept would allow us to do would be to put heavy landscaping in there, a fence, some kind of large stone hard scaping in order to discourage the jaywalking.
“We’ve talked to the University, and probably a perfect place would be right there at what I call the 'Great Lawn,' we’re gonna look at maybe widening some areas there to allow for bus drop offs and that would also allow a pull-off for an emergency vehicle to pass by.”
Although approving the option, the boulevard project is not set in stone and there are many details to iron out.
"When we get down to what I call the nitty-gritty of this thing, we need to be sure that we get it all worked in before it comes back to you for approval," said Mayor Jack Rose during the joint Transportation, Public Safety and Public Works committee meeting. "I don't think you'll see [the plans] one time, I think whoever does the work on this will probably bring it back to this council multiple times to make sure we're getting everything in that's supposed to be in."
Choate says the project still needs to go through final design before being submitted to the state, but he’s glad the city now has a plan for moving forward.
In other business, the council approved the appointment of Tony Page as the city's representative on the Murray-Calloway County Hospital Board and took note of a report regarding the Historic District tax abatement.
