Most Progressive Cities, Towns and/or Orgs in the TRI?

[Jim37680]

Originally Posted by rccrain

I hate the word "progressive" - it's too politicized to convey it's true meaning. So I will give the communities intelligence ratings.

Kingsport - B - yes downtown is good and getting better, but traffic is awful. YMCA is a plus. New restaurants are a plus. Retail is improving. Traffic cameras are a major negative. Warriors Path and Bays Mountain are major pluses although they are state parks - not sure what Kpt puts into them.

Johnson City - B+ - Downtown is the most glaring need - unbelievable that it has much more potential than the others but still lags behind. Also, JC needs to add a YMCA in the north/central area of town and make improvements to its parks. Other than that, JC is an easy 'A'. It handles its traffic load incredibly. Interstate makes travel from one side to the other seamless. The loop that connects SoF to N Roan offers exceptional retail, medical, university, and downtown experiences that are convenient to all city residents. Recent major pluses: Pharma School, Business Incubator Program, signs of life in downtown, museums/historical sites.

Bristol - B- - Cute Downtown, Amazing Amazing city owned parks, and BMS are all big pluses. But Bristol outside of its downtown is just not as vibrant as it should be. The VA and TN side seem to work against each other more than with each other. Exit 7 is a traffic nightmare - but the newest theater in the Tricities would occasionally make it worth it. The Bristol Mall Area has been forgotten and it just seems poorly planned on both the TN and VA side.

Now the smaller towns (rated on the intelligence of what they've done with what they have, not necessarily the desirability of the community):

Jonesborough: A-
Erwin: C
Bluff City: F
Rogersville: B
Church Hill: C
Gray: C+
Blountville: D

I think it is significant to point out that "Bays Mountain Park" was created by Kingsport in the 1960's and is a Kingsport funded and operated park- one of the largest city owned parks in the nation. Warriors Path State Park is obviously a state park although it does have considerable border contact with Kingsport.

[rccrain]

Good info Jim. Who knows how long I've incorrectly thought Bays Mountain was a state park. It is very impressive for a muni park - probably one of the best in the state.

[TNGal78]

but I don't (personally) think that Johnson City handles it's traffic well. It is just as bad -- or worse-- than Kingsport.


I love JC and Kingsport. Live in Kingsport. Hate going out during lunch hour, and during the hours from 4-6 (quitting time traffic). I live in Colonial Heights and it gets really congested.

I don't smell the Eastman anymore...well, rarely anyway.

I always smell the waste water treatment plant. Or as we call it the "poopy plant". It could also be the paper factory.

[jabogitlu]

I just don't see where traffic is bad in Johnson City OR Kingsport. In Johnson City there's a constant population of 62-65k, with maybe 100k in the day, pushing it at 110-120k around the holidays and race weekends. There's never any traffic jams, getting on and off I-26 is a breeze. I can get from one side of town to the other in 15 minutes, 20-25 during peak traffic times.

There are a few foul-ups, like sitting through a red light a few cycles at Market/SoF or in Jonesborough at Jackson/Boones Creek Road. But other than that, I think Johnson City handles its traffic well enough - keeping in mind that there's not a lot of traffic to begin with. SoF and Market-Roan provide a great loop with streets like Knob Creek, Mountcastle, Browns Mill, Oakland and Princeton providing basically traffic-free maneuvering around the city.

Kingsport does pretty good too. I used to work there and would usually be driving through downtown and up and down Stone around lunch hour and 4-5 pm. Not a big deal. It's busy, but there is far less traffic than in other cities I've lived/been in.

Bristol, however, is a nightmare. (I used to work there, too.) Volunteer can be horrible (mostly because people drive 35 mph in the left lane in copious quantities), State St. is always crowded and exit 7 looks as though nine year olds decided the road layout. Seriously, every time I went to exit 7 I felt like I was taking my life into my own hands, and I always got stuck in the middle of an intersection, half in a lane, or waiting like ten minutes to pull out of an intersection.

Now, I don't think that places like Greeneville and Elizabethton handle their rush hour traffic well. However, that's the nature of the beast. Both cities are strung out along one main four-lane (and in Elizabethton's case, an auxiliary four-lane) and when people are trying to cross town, bam, watch out. It's actually taken me longer to get from one side of Greeneville to the other than Johnson City. I do know that Greeneville is in the studying/environmental review stages of a "Bypass of the Bypass" which could help alleviate some of the problems and provide those of us closer to the Limestone area a much easier way to get to I-81.

[rccrain]

I'd love to see the place that handles the volume of traffic that JC has as well as JC does. I have plenty of snipes with JC but traffic is definitely not one of them. My criticism of Kingsport's traffic might be due to lack of familiarity with the city. It seems that every trip I make has been crazy. I've lived in JC and Bristol for multiple years so I am more familiar with those areas.

[TNGal78]

My friend from Nashville laughs when I say rush hour is bad here.


I've sat in Colonial Heights for 30 minutes in 5pm traffic. She laughs about it. Roan street in JC scares me , especially at lunch and quitting time. She drives through it like nobody is there.


I wouldn't say either one is horrendous, only that I have lived here 30yrs and to me it can get congested. That's just me. It would not stop me from living in either JC or Kingsport.