Next phase of Johnson City's Walnut Street project to impact University Parkway

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WCYB) — A new phase in Johnson City's Walnut Street project will mean big changes to a portion of University Parkway near ETSU.

The next phase is expected to last about three months. During that time, traffic will be down to one lane in each direction along a busy section of University Parkway at the intersection with State of Franklin Road.

City leaders timed it out just after ETSU's graduation.

“We planned it,” city engineer Wallace McCulloch said. “We started it knowing when school was going out of session, and we believe we can complete it.”

City leaders put out a video to explain the complicated detours.

For the first six to eight weeks, traffic will be pushed to the west side of University Parkway, blocking access to the Tree Streets. Then for another four weeks, traffic will be pushed to the east side of the road, blocking access to ETSU.

The bottom line, city officials say you should really look for an alternate route.

In the end, the stop light at University and Walnut will be removed, extending the turn lanes and getting rid of backups.

“It'll make it much easier,” McCulloch said. “They won't have that double-signal to try to deal with, which a lot of people ignore it already anyway. There's a lot of accidents that happen at this intersection.”

Walnut Street businesses will still be accessible from all side streets to the north.

The east half of Walnut is already most of the way finished, except for landscaping and a layer of pavement.

“Oh! I can't wait,” said Joey Booth, owner of Mojo Skateboard Shop. “It's going to be like Disney World here. I mean, it's going to be beautiful. All the utilities will be underground. We'll have walking trails, bike trails, brand new roads. There will actually be way more parking, because we'll have parking spaces all along the road.”

City leaders expect to have the whole project substantially completed by Thanksgiving.