One-Way or Another: A Proposed Change for Union Avenue

The City of Knoxville is considering converting the 500 block of Union Avenue from two-way to one-way traffic, a relatively simple change on paper: some paint, signs and a rearrangement of curbside space.

Inside the lobby of The Pembroke yesterday evening, it did not feel simple at all.

About 25 residents and nearby stakeholders spent more than an hour peppering the City’s Downtown Coordinator Ellie Moore and Transportation Engineer Manager Evan Hoffman with questions and concerns about emergency access, deliveries, traffic backups, construction, pedestrian safety and parking.

The gathering was hosted by Pembroke HOA President Deno Cole and included residents from The Pembroke and across-the-street Daylight Building as well as representatives from nearby businesses including Pete’s and Chesapeake’s. 

So, what is the city trying to accomplish? There are several things tangled together here.

Union Avenue and Market Street routinely close for the Market Square Farmers Market and other downtown events. The city recently expanded that secured event footprint westward because vehicles accessing the remaining sliver of Union, before you reach the Oliver Hotel, were turning around, traveling the wrong way or attempting to exit through a very tight alley. Moore said there had even been incidents of vehicles hitting buildings.

Expanding that event closure, however, also takes existing ADA parking spaces out of service. Meanwhile, the transition between one-way and two-way portions of Union can be confusing for drivers at the intersection, Moore said, with motorists sometimes stopping in crosswalks while trying to decipher where they can go, then proceeding with stilted awareness of pedestrians.

The city sees an opportunity to address several problems at once: make the traffic pattern more intuitive, replace lost accessible parking, and encourage stronger pedestrian connectivity between Market Square and the businesses farther west on Union. Moore described much of the westbound traffic on the block as “flushing traffic,” cars simply passing through rather than stopping at businesses.

The current proposal would make the 500 block one-way and use some of the freed-up street width for ADA parking, commercial loading and additional metered parking. An expanded commercial loading zone is intended to address delivery vehicles that currently stop in travel lanes.

Moore said the city has also discussed using the extra width to enlarge sidewalks instead of adding parking, but that would require a much more expensive infrastructure project. The one-way proposal, by contrast, is “literally just paint and a few parking signs,” she said. If it proved disastrous, it could also be undone relatively easily.

Pembroke residents were unanimous and vocal in their opposition to the conversion.

The building’s vehicular garage entrance and exit is on Walnut Street, an at-times congested stretch of the downtown street grid that is currently further complicated by construction of a new hotel, an AC by Marriott on Walnut between the Langley Garage and the Daylight Building. Residents described difficulty getting out during farmers markets, football weekends and other high-traffic periods, with one saying she had waited as long as nine minutes for another driver to let her into the stream of traffic. 

Several argued that removing one route out of the neighborhood would funnel even more vehicles onto streets that are already pinched by garage entrances, loading zones, construction and parking. While a weeklong traffic study was conducted in May of this year, they were particularly uneasy about making a permanent change before the AC by Marriott opens and its traffic patterns can actually be observed. 

Emergency access generated some of the evening’s most impassioned comments, with meeting attendees arguing that narrowing Union to one travel lane while adding curbside parking could create problems when fire trucks and ambulances respond to the 50-plus-unit residential building. 

One resident described it as a “logistical choke point,” noting that its Union Avenue frontage is routinely used by delivery drivers, ride shares and service providers. She worried that a stopped delivery truck or emergency vehicle could effectively consume the only through lane, leaving additional responders stacked behind it. Moore said emergency access is a priority and that the fire department has been consulted.

Deliveries were another recurring theme. Residents described UPS trucks, plumbers, HVAC technicians, Amazon deliveries and other service vehicles already struggling to find legal places to stop. The proposal would add commercial loading space, but residents questioned whether that would be enough once two travel lanes become one. Delivery drivers already use the street itself as a loading zone.

“The city is using a sledgehammer to drive a thumbtack,” one resident said, urging officials to consider more localized solutions for ADA access rather than remaking the entire block.

I’ll insert my own two cents here: I don’t have a particular objection to making this block one-way. Simplifying a confusing traffic pattern and prioritizing pedestrian safety makes sense to me. It’s the “more street parking” part I can’t get very excited about. More room for vacant hunks of metal to sit would not be my first choice.

Cars already consume enormous amounts of downtown real estate, both moving and sitting still. (Updating Alan’s great 2018 story, “There’s Not Enough Parking!,” for 2026 is on my to-do list. It noted that inside the city limits of Knoxville, we devote 5,000 acres to parking not including car lots and roads, and I’d wager that number has grown over the last eight years.) 

If I park my car on Union Avenue or Gay Street or wherever for two hours, roughly 160 square feet of public space is effectively held hostage by one person for two hours. A wider sidewalk, patio, bench, tree, bike rack or other people-oriented use of that same space can contribute to street life all day long. Knoxville’s annual Park(ing) Day makes this point beautifully, temporarily transforming ordinary parking spaces into tiny pop-up parks and other public spaces. You can read my coverage of last year’s event here. 

If the stated goal is getting more people to wander from Market Square onto Union and patronize its businesses, I’m not convinced lining more of the block with parked cars is the most imaginative way to accomplish it. Shady patios along the Union Avenue’s deliciously wide sidewalk, in front of businesses like JC Holdway, Mahalo Coffee and Union Avenue Books, are pleasant precisely because they aren’t currently fronted by parking. It makes the whole block feel “softer,” as a friend of mine who actually works in urban design put it. 

I’m a journalist and downtown enthusiast, not a transportation engineer. I don’t have the 10,000-foot view of how traffic moves through the broader downtown street grid, and I’m happy to concede that there may be consequences or benefits that aren’t obvious from sidewalk level.

If the proposal does move forward, though, I hope the City will find ways to soften the added presence of stationary cars with more big, lovely planters or other greenery, like those already lining the opposite side of the street and elsewhere. Standing ovation for whomever designs and executes these (please shout them out in the comments, if you know whom to credit! This investment add so much to the urban landscape.)

Moore said yesterday’s gathering was the last scheduled public meeting in the current information-gathering phase, which included a two-week comment period last month and several stakeholder meetings. As always, citizens may contact their elected officials. From here, she will distill the feedback and communicate it to the decision-making administration. She did not provide a timeline but said stakeholders would receive advance notice if a change moves forward.

Moore spent much of the evening doing exactly what a Downtown Coordinator ought to do in a meeting like this: communicating the City’s proposal and answering questions while absorbing some pretty heated criticism and listening to meeting-goers’ feedback with genuine interest and concern.

Downtowns are messier than the lines on a street map suggest. They have someone unloading groceries, a fire engine trying to get through, a restaurant patio full of people, a tourist going the wrong way, a resident trying to escape football traffic and UPS trucks double-parked at 10 a.m. (Recently, while sitting on Alan’s balcony above Gay Street, we watched in awe as one delivery truck repeatedly sideswiped another, then waited with bated breath for the drivers’ interaction — which was shockingly civil. That’s entertainment!) And, yes, somebody whose car has been sitting in the same parking space for five hours.

In other words: lots and lots of competing interests and priorities, all trying to occupy the same finite amount of downtown real estate. I’m just glad I’m not the one who has to figure out how to balance them all.