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.”
Kelly has made addressing traffic congestion a major priority over his first five years in office, significantly increasing investments in roads, signalization and alternative transportation options.
For decades, the rail intersection on Hamill Road has routinely been ranked as the worst intersection in the state in terms of blocked crossings, and has also been recognized nationally in the Federal Rail Administration’s own publications as a case study demonstrating the challenges of at-grade rail crossings located near hospitals and fire stations.
In 2024, after the Kelly Administration installed a new monitoring and traffic warning system, the city recorded an average of 30 blockages per day, at an average of more than five minutes per blockage, with the longest crossing blockage lasting nearly five hours. Longer blockages were recorded during the critical evening rush hours, and the system recorded about 700 blockages greater than 10 minutes in its first year of operation.
In addition to stranding motorists on their way to work, church, school or other activities, the crossing also poses a public safety risk, given the life safety concerns raised when first-responders, such as ambulances and fire trucks, cannot reach an emergency or quickly transport a patient for treatment. In addition, the Hamill Road area is within the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant evacuation zone, and a stopped train would create a bottleneck during any potential emergency.