The importance of contacting local officials

Recently, I saw that a bike lane was painted on Lovell Rd in Knox County that was to the right of a right-turn only lane as part of its widening project. Earlier, I had found that a pedestrian push signal was non-functional on Northshore Dr, also in Knox County. For the first case, I contacted Kelley Segars at the Knoxville Regional TPO (Transportation Planning Organization) about the issue. She was quickly able to make the relevant inquiries, and had the problem corrected - the bike lane was terminated before the intersection in question with a "Share the Road" sign to be erected since there is no bike lane beyond that point anyhow. In the second case, an email to engineering soon resulted in the defective signal being repaired.

Bike/Walk advocates should report cases of substandard designs and malfunctioning signals to the relevant people. Sometimes we can notice specific things before others do, and improve the bike/ped scene for all.