The future of Carothers looks expensive
By CHARLES PULLIAM/Franklin Home Page
Posted: Monday, March 4, 2013 10:10 pm
It’s an expensive future for the Carothers Parkway in Franklin. Or an exciting one from a development point of view. Or even one just stuffed with infrastructure headaches for city planners.
Monday afternoon (March 4, 2013) at City Hall a joint workshop of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen and the Franklin Municipal Planning Commission listened to infrastructure needs and some necessary changes along the Carothers corridor put together by city staff and traffic consultant, Kimley Horn and Associates.
Essentially, by 2025, staffers estimated between $48 (million) and $64 million will be needed to complete the proposed changes to the Carothers Parkway from Baker’s Bridge to Highway 96, including work at each of the intersections along the way at Liberty Pike, McEwen Drive and Cool Springs Boulevard. Separately, those roadways were also proposed to see additional changes, including last year’s newly completed section of McEwen Drive.
In short, a roughly 500-page report indicated that the roads won’t be wide enough to efficiently handle the expected traffic estimated to be using the roadways by 2025. Brad Waldschmidt of Kimley Horn and Associates reviewed the entire corridor as one development to come up with a traffic figure. He estimated that there will be 72,000 daily vehicle trips in the area.
To better gauge the amount of traffic, City Engineer Dan Allen said the anticipated density of the area is the equivalent of the Nissan corporate building in Cool Springs 12 times over.