From the Director
by Matt Cate, P.E.
It’s hard to believe that only two weeks ago we were experiencing record highs for the month of October. Summer definitely overstayed its welcome by a few weeks, but I’m happy to say that it finally feels like fall. This is my favorite time of the year, so I’m happy to bring the jackets out of their summer hiding place. Maybe the hot start to fall explains the Vols’ slow start in football. Let’s hope that their big win over Mississippi State is a sign of good things to come and not a one-time glimmer of hope. If things don’t start to click in Neyland Stadium, at least basketball season is just around the corner.
If you’ve been keeping up with the news from Nashville, you may already know that one of the top priorities in Governor Bill Lee’s first year in office is to improve service and opportunities for Tennessee’s rural counties. For fiscal year 2020, 15 of Tennessee’s 95 counties (Bledsoe, Clay, Cocke, Fentress, Grundy, Hardeman, Hancock, Jackson, Lake, Lauderdale, McNairy, Morgan, Perry, Scott, and Van Buren) are classified as economically distressed. Distressed counties rank in the bottom 10 percent of all US counties in terms of poverty, unemployment, and average income.
In August, Governor Lee and members of his cabinet met with representatives from the 15 distressed counties at a Rural Opportunity Summit in Linden (Perry County). A press release detailing the summit cited “county transportation planning and rural access improvements” as the top transportation items under discussion. I’m sure that more details will emerge as the process moves forward, but it is encouraging to see that our rural counties are receiving some muchneeded help.
I’m happy to say that TTAP was able to play a very small part in the early effort to support Tennessee’s distressed counties. I was able to visit with officials in five towns to discuss details of proposed sidewalk projects being submitted for consideration under TDOT’s Multimodal Access Grant program. I hope that our new friends in all five towns soon receive good news regarding their applications. I also hope that this is the first of many new opportunities for TTAP to bring additional resources and information to officials in rural Tennessee counties.
If you represent one of the distressed counties listed above, or a city or town within these counties, I encourage you to reach out and let me know what TTAP can do to help you. We may be based in Knoxville, but TTAP is a statewide program. No one is too small or too far away (and I love to make new friends and visit new places).
That’s all I have for this issue. Let’s hope this beautiful fall weather hangs around for a while. Maybe we can talk about UT Football’s miraculous turnaround and a great start to the season for the UT Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams in my next report.
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