Knox County was selected as one of 41 sites for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities initiative. The Knox County HKHC partnership will focus on reducing childhood obesity by expanding neighborhood Safe Routes to School options and improving access to healthy, affordable foods. The TPO is assisting the project by helping to identify barriers and solutions to active transportation in neighborhoods.

TPO has requested that the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation expedite the process required to get EPA to redesignate the Knoxville Region back into attainment status for Ozone since the air quality monitoring data for the years 2007-2009 shows that the area is now meeting the current standard.

TPO will be resuming work on the 321 Scenic Byway Corridor Study. The consultant on this project is currently doing field work to identify the intrinsic qualities of the corridor and how to maintain and capitalize these qualities to keep it as a scenic byway and eventually get it designated as a national scenic highway.