It's been the source of frustration for several Mt. Juliet residents... And now Mt. Juliet Road near I-40 is one step closer to a better traffic flow.
A research study that started back in August has revealed several problems wrong with Mt. Juliet Road -
 City officials tell me they are trying to fix the problems one step at a time to ease congestion along that busy roadway.
The lights on Mt. Juliet road march to the beat of their own drum....
Director of Public Works, Marlin Keel says, “Right now each signal at each intersection works independently of all the other signals so they can get out of sequence and you may not be able to hit the sequence.”
And that has drivers frustrated
Mark Montgomery says, “When I am going to lunch I try to go to lunch on this side of the road because if you go to lunch you are going to waste your whole lunch hour in traffic.”
To find out how to fix the problem the city collaborated with the Tennessee Department of Transportation on a study.
 Along with several other findings: reports discovered the signals would work best if they were put on three different timing sequences: one for the morning, mid-day and evening... Just for now...
 Eventually it found that the lights need to have the same controllers so they could correspond with each other and a master controller.  But the lights on the road are not the only problem - the booming business around the road happened faster than city officials expected  the study found, with the quick narrowing of the south lanes from five to three down to two causes problems in traffic flow coming from the interstate and businesses along Mt. Juliet Road.
  Heather Freshwater says, “I have lived here for 17 years and it used to take me 5 minutes to get to the interstate and now it’s just ridiculous with the new traffic I almost don't like coming up to this new shopping area.”
 Keel says they will fix the road in phases: the first will be to put the lights onto a time of day sequence.
Keel says, “It’s not going to be the end all cure all but traffic through that area if you move through that area you should notice a significant difference in terms of how the signals function and how they will allow you to move through that area.”
Keel says the city plans to time the controllers- next week, just in time for holiday traffic.
Keel tells me purchasing the equipment for all of the lights as well as getting a master controller could cost around 30 thousand dollars per light.
 He says he is still coming up with a plan for funding that project.