A $1.5 million project on Knoxville’s Liberty Street is complete, adding a sidewalk, connecting bike lanes, drainage improvements and a traffic-signal upgrade along a corridor used by pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders and motorists. WATE 6 On Your Side reported that the new east-side sidewalk is near 1100 Liberty Street and runs between Sutherland Avenue and the Tennessee College of Applied Technology campus.
The work also links bike lanes between Knott Road and Division Street, extending the corridor’s connection to existing bicycle routes toward the Third Creek Greenway and Middlebrook Pike, according to the WATE report. The project was financed with an 80% federal match administered through the Tennessee Department of Transportation and a 20% local match, the report said.
A new link in a citywide safety network
The Liberty Street improvements arrive as Knoxville evaluates gaps in its broader bicycle and pedestrian network. The city’s 2026 Bicycle Facilities Plan says coverage remains uneven, with high-stress streets and network gaps limiting connectivity and comfort. That citywide assessment provides planning context for the new Liberty Street facilities, but it does not by itself show how much the completed project will change travel or crash outcomes on this corridor.
Knoxville’s bicycle-crash totals also describe a broader city pattern rather than Liberty Street specifically. The city plan records 102 bicycle crashes from 2020 through 2025, including three fatalities and 23 serious injuries. Separately, the Knoxville Regional TPO crash map records 2,326 regional crashes that resulted in a fatality or serious injury between January 2016 and June 2019. The different jurisdictions and time periods mean the figures should not be combined as a trend line for Liberty Street.
What the project does—and what is not yet known
The completed work establishes a formal pedestrian route near TCAT and improves bicycle continuity between nearby routes, while also addressing drainage and a traffic signal, according to WATE’s account of the project. The available records do not establish that Liberty Street was responsible for a particular crash pattern, nor do they yet show whether the changes have reduced injuries or altered travel behavior.
The project fits within Knoxville’s longer-term Vision Zero effort. The city’s 2024 Vision Zero report says Knoxville uses a High Injury Network and related action items in pursuit of eliminating fatal crashes on city-controlled roads by 2040. The report also says 32 fatal crashes occurred on the city’s non-interstate roadways in 2024. Those figures explain the policy setting for safety investments such as Liberty Street, but they are not a measurement of this project’s results.
