The Cookeville Public Works Department installed a four-way stop at the intersection of North Oak Avenue and West First Street Thursday.
Public Works Director Mary Beth Elrod said the intersection previously had stop signs on both sides of First Street, while North Oak Avenue was a through street with no stopping.
“With the uptick in development and more on-street parking, we’ve noticed that the visibility here at the stop signs on First Street is hard to see to pull out,” Elrod said. “And so for safety purposes, we have installed a four-way stop so all directions will stop on both Oak Street and First Street.”
In another traffic flow change, Elrod said the city replaced angled parking with parallel parking on West Broad Street from Cedar Avenue to Walnut Avenue.
“This angled parking is not per our zoning codes,” Elrod said. “Our zoning codes requires 15 feet minimum between the edge of the curb and the travel lane, and this area, because it is the old part of town, it only actually has 12 and a half feet available.”
Elrod said the two-and-a-half-foot difference is the reason bigger vehicles stick out into the roadway, causing motorists to veer into other lanes to avoid hitting parked vehicles. Elrod said the parallel parking will be on a trial basis.
“We are gonna temporarily stripe parallel parking,” Elrod said. “We are gonna see how the parallel parking works. If it helps with safety concerns in the area, if it helps the flow of traffic navigate this corridor better, and then we will look at permanently restriping that in the future, if this works, or doing another option if it does not work.”
Elrod said the city will wait a couple of months to see how parallel parking works before making a decision. Elrod said initially, the parallel parking may be something that people struggle with getting used to.
At First and Oak, Elrod said the city installed temporary stop signs and painted appropriate street markings with plans to eventually get permanent stop signs.
