The Associated Press

July 11, 2003

Chattanooga, TN—On Thursday, the City of Chattanooga’s Traffic Engineer announced the temporary closure of M. L. King Boulevard between Lindsay Street and Peeples Street beginning this evening at 7 p.m. M. L. King Boulevard will reopen to traffic on Monday, July 21 at 6 a.m.

The closure is being made as part of a massive sewer/stormwater project which will correct a decades-old problem which has plagued business merchants along Martin Luther King Boulevard.

Business owners throughout that corridor approached Mayor Bob Corker soon after he came to office and explained that whenever the area experienced a hard rain and there was any flooding, businesses were forced to deal with terrible odors and sometimes during especially heavy rains sewage even washed onto the street or into came up into businesses. The representatives explained that these circumstances had been a constant for many years and that the problem threatened the viability of their businesses and caused them to lose customers.

Mayor Corker commissioned the Public Works department to study this problem that had been neglected for many years and devise a solution. To remedy the situation, the combined sewer stormwater system along MLK is being upgraded with the installation of enormous box culverts designed to handle a much larger capacity of water.

This short section of MLK is being temporarily closed so that this installation can be completed and a long-time problem can be corrected.

Beginning this evening, the primary detour is for east bound traffic on ML King to turn left and go north on Houston St to E 8th St, turn right onto E 8th St and proceed two blocks east to Douglas St, turn right on to Douglas St and back south to ML King Blvd. A secondary detour of south on Lindsay St to E 11th St, left on 11th St and east to Park Ave then turning left to go north on Park Ave to ML King Blvd will also be available.