Safety and Preservation Top Priorities for Old Smyrna Road

Published on October 14, 2025

BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – Old Smyrna Road, one of the oldest streets in Brentwood, is an iconic part of this community, with its canopy of trees and historic stone walls. Early settlers once traveled down this slender path to get flour and animal feed from a local grist mill, and more 200 years later, the narrow road has become an idyllic route for Sunday drives.

But during busier days, hundreds of vehicles – including large construction trucks – use Old Smyrna Road as a convenient way to get from Wilson Pike to Edmondson Pike. The charm remains, but the growing traffic has become a safety concern for residents and city officials. Brentwood is now actively working on a plan to preserve Old Smyrna Road’s rich history while also making it safe for 21st-century drivers.

The most pressing issue is a short stretch of road that is only 15 feet wide. The city’s Engineering Department has conducted numerous improvement and safety studies over the years, and on Aug. 18, they presented three design concepts to the Brentwood residents for input. The community’s overwhelming response was for Option A, which would turn that small portion of Old Smyrna Road into a pedestrian trail and add a new two-lane road on the other side of the stone wall and trees.

“We’re going to be able to take the original roadbed for the first mile or so of Old Smyrna Road, with the rock walls and trees, and preserve it as a greenway trail that can still be enjoyed by people, the same way they can still enjoy Ravenswood Mansion and the Cool Springs House,” Brentwood Mayor Nelson Andrews said at a Williamson Inc. Policy Talk. “And then we can build an actual safe, modern road through right-of-way we’ve acquired just to the north of that.”

Attendees at the Aug. 18 meeting voted in favor of this plan, with 86% saying they preferred Option A. Among the people who live on Old Smyrna Road, 82% approved of the design, and 90% of the people living in the area also picked that option.

“The consensus was pretty clear for Option A,” Dickie Sullivan, president of Sullivan Engineering, said. His firm was hired by the city to develop initial concepts for the road.

During a September meeting with the City Commission, Sullivan presented the survey results and addressed concerns he’d heard from residents. Some individuals worried the project would remove too many trees and destroy the old walls, disrupting Old Smyrna Road’s historic nature. Option A, Sullivan said, would have the smallest impact on the road’s aesthetics.

“We were really surprised when we looked at it that we are not impacting any of the historic wall with this alternative,” he said. The project will require a few small portions of the newer wall on Old Smyrna Road to be removed for driveway access. “We’re also cutting down very few trees. We’ve got five trees that we’re removing.”

Among those five trees, three – an ash tree and two hackberry trees – are in bad health and need to be removed.

The project is expected to cost about $8.7 million. The city will host another meeting with affected homeowners to make sure they understand the proposed improvement. The next step, which will officially begin the project, will be for the city to sign a contract with a firm to design the new road and multi-use trail.

More information on the project, including the other two alternatives presented to the community, is available at https://www.brentwoodtn.gov/Departments/Engineering/Capital-Improvement-Projects/Old-Smyrna-Road. A video of the Sept. 18 City Commission Briefing where the project and survey results were discussed is available here.