The Chattanooga City Council on Tuesday approved the next step in Mayor Tim Kelly’s multi-year project to relieve traffic snarls on Hamill Road stemming from a busy rail crossing adjacent to a CommonSpirit Memorial Hospital in Hixson.
The measure approved by City Council will allocate $323,750 in matching funds toward a $1.62 million U.S. Federal Rail Administration grant the Kelly Administration sought in 2024. The funding will go toward preliminary engineering of a grade separation, which would create a rail overpass for vehicle traffic to drive underneath.
The funding builds on a prior project that warned motorists when the crossing is blocked through an electronic monitoring system linked to digital billboards.
“We’ve been slapping boxes of band-aids on this problem for years, and it’s beyond time to fix it permanently,” said Mayor Tim Kelly. “Quality of life is our stock-in-trade, and it’s flatly unacceptable that our residents are stuck waiting sometimes for hours to go pick up a prescription, grab a gallon of milk or go to a job interview. I’m particularly grateful to Norfolk Southern, the U.S. Federal Rail Administration, as well as Tim Andrews at the Hamilton County Rail Authority for bringing the focus and, frankly, the money, to help us get this done.”…