A Frenetic but Fun Weekend in Nashville or How to Get Tourists Out of Their Cars.

A Frenetic but Fun Weekend in Nashville or What You Can Do Right Now, or at Least this Fall, to Get Nashvillians and Tourists Out Of Their Cars

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After reading a June 6th, Wall Street Journal article entitled 'A Pitch-Perfect Long Weekend in Nashville' I am struck by how similar the phrasing is compared to a prior article in the same magazine from a few years back (Oct 6th 2012, link below).  To me, it shows that we have yet to be, even considered, a truly walkable city.

The 'mad-dash intenerary' starts with: DAY ONE // Land at Nashville International Airport and pick up your rental car. Interspersed are quotes like 'rise, shine and drive several minutes', 'The three-block stretch of honky-tonks on Lower Broadway', and 'The commercial strip is just a few blocks long' you get the picture that this city has pockets of interesting things to do but is not yet connected (walkable).

  

To be fair, there are statements such as 'Or, walk there through Vanderbilt University's campus to earn the hot cakes you're about to devour', 'take a stroll around downtown', 'drive or walk the half mile' or 'wander the surrounding Hillsboro Village neighborhood'. This represents an improvement for sure. The city is becoming more dense and slightly more traveled by foot and bike.  

Nashville still has a long way to go to become truly walkable.  We have an extensive retro-fit in store to install the needed sidewalks so a walker can get easily from point A to point B. And, this retro-fit is going to be expensive.

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What can you do, right now, to help get Nashvillians (and out-of-towners) out on foot?  

Now that summer has arrived, most notably, we need more shade cover for our walkers.

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Nashvillians, please plant trees this fall to provide shade cover for walkers.  We are, after all a Tree City!  2013 marks the 18th consecutive year Nashville has been recognized by The Arbor Day Foundation as a Tree City USA!

You can also donate to The Sidewalk Foundation.  

The Sidewalk Foundation is the non-profit arm of Shade Parade Nashville.  We are focusing on individual projects - our 1st being to sidewalk Bowling Av to its terminus at Woodmont.  

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According to NES, good choices for trees in this area are:

Red Buckeye
Crabapples - Adirondack or Narragansett
Maples - Flame Amur or Japanese
Dogwoods - Stellar Pink, Flowering hybrids, Chinese or Kousa
Japanese Flowering Apricot
Flowering Cherries - Yoshino or Kwanzan
Chinese Fringetree
Hollies - Greenleaf American or Warren Red
Crape Myrtles - Lipan, Sioux or Yuma
Blackhaw Plum Leaf Vibernum
Redbuds - Forest Pansy or Oklahoma

Sources:

http://shadeparadenashville.blogspot.com/2014/04/shade-parade-nashville-asks-that-you.html

http://www.nashville.gov/News-Media/News-Article/ID/1638/Metro-Nashville-Recognized-as-a-Tree-City-USA-18-Years


http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-best-long-weekend-in-nashville-1402072167

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390443507204578022462927301922?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10000872396390443507204578022462927301922.html