At Tuesday's TDOT meeting someone asked where the traffic on Alcoa Highway is originating and where it's going. TDOT did not have that information available.

Poking around the Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) website, we found some clues in the 2008 East Tennessee Household Travel Survey.

Cross-county travel statistics do not include routes, but it's a safe bet that most travel between Blount Co. and Knox Co. involves Alcoa Highway.

Here's what we found interesting...

Table 4.2, cross-county travel for work, shows that 83% of Knox Co. residents travel to work in Knox Co. while only 5.9% travel to Blount Co..

Conversely, 33% of Blount Co. residents travel to Knox Co. for work, and 60% travel to work within Blount Co.

The disparity is even greater for shopping.

Table 4.3, cross-county travel for non-incidental shopping, shows that 97.6% of Knox Co. residents travel within Knox Co. for shopping and 0% (zero) travel to Blount Co.

By comparison, 36.1% of Blount Co. residents travel to Knox Co. for shopping and only 58% travel within Blount Co.

Obviously many people work in Knox Co. because it is the major metropolitan center of the region and that's typically where the jobs are. But as transportation costs (i.e. gas prices) increase people are more likely to move closer to where they work.

Absent any stepped up economic development in Blount Co., one could speculate there will be a gradual shift of the working population to Knox Co. and a corresponding decline in traffic.

And just to editorialize a little, people in Blount Co. should shop in Blount Co. whenever possible to support local businesses and the local economy.

And to editorialize a little more, why don't people who work in Knox Co. move to Knox Co.?

Instead, the chamber of commerce and local officials want to spend $100 million of taxpayer dollars to pave Alcoa so folks in West Maryville can knock a minute or two off their drive time to work in Knoxville or to go shopping at Turkey Creek. (And so Knoxville businessmen can zoom to the airport to fly away from here.)

It appears we are becoming a community whose only purpose is to maintain super-highways so other people can zoom through our town on their way to somewhere else. Maybe we should concentrate a little more on being a community where people live, work and play, and others want to visit, and get around safely whether driving, walking, or riding a bicycle while doing it.

One last thing. According to the survey, Ford, Chevy, and Dodge pickup trucks make up four of the top five vehicle models driven. Folks really ought to consider getting a hybrid or other high MPG vehicle for commuting and leave the pickup in the driveway except for hauling home mulch or whatever from Home Depot.