Franklin's road widening project has been in the works for more than a decade, and finally, the community along Columbia Avenue has an opportunity to give their input before construction begins.
It really doesn't matter what time of day it is, traffic along Columbia Avenue in Franklin is a headache, and has been for awhile.
"It's just unbelievable how much traffic is out here," resident Carole Brennan.
However, plans for the road widening project date back to more than a decade ago. "The initial parts of the project started around 2001 with some traffic studies," project manager, William Banks.
Now the project has the state and federal funding to move forward but before it does Banks wants feedback from the neighborhood. "We want to know what they foresee as a successful project out there," said Banks.
Residents along Hillsboro Road can attest to what the project will likely look like. Preliminary construction there has already begun. Barrels and markers indicate where the road will widen to, shortening many front lawns, driveways and parking lots.
"That's always been a little bit of an issue, we've tried to work through that with our plans and working with our contractor to make sure we don't impact the residents out there," said Banks.
Some of those same concerns have already been voiced by businesses on Columbia Ave.
"I think that its a good idea but if it's going to take up all of our frontal parking that's not good either for us small businesses because a lot of us don't have side parking," Kay Roberts at The Quilting Squares told us last Fall.
As cities and roadways in middle Tennessee continue to feel the pinch of a growing population, for the next few years growing pains in Franklin will sound a lot like construction.
"I'm hoping in the end it works for everyone," Brennan said.
Construction on the Hillsboro Road project is expected to end in June, 2017. The Columbia Avenue project could take up to five years to complete. The first public meeting on the project is on Tuesday. For more information, click here.
