#DontLetYourBuilderTalkYouOutOfBuildingTheSidewalk Nashville

Sidewalks are expensive but truly needed.  Unfortunately, the great majority (81%) of Nashville's roadways are like this one with literally no place for a person (not in a car) to be. 

One of the best features of the Sidewalk Bill 493 is that once a piece of sidewalk goes in on a block face, the in-lieu fee, which allows for payment into a fund instead of building the sidewalk, is no longer an option.  Unfortunately, this in-lieu fee has recently been weakened as an agent of change - the cost has been reduced from $178/linear foot (lf) down to $153/lf - despite the current city estimates quoted below being significantly higher. 


One thing we can all do then is to build the sidewalk required of us by law.  A contractor can build the sidewalk for significantly less then the cost quoted below.  This act alone would be a huge gift to the city and a gift to every single citizen as we are all pedestrians. 

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The Sidewalk Foundation has (2) $500 micro-grants available to any homeowner who builds their sidewalk when the Sidewalk Bill is triggered Nashville-wide and (2) specifically reserved for Bowling Av (Sidewalk project #1).  Please contact us for more information.

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#NashvilleNeedsSidewalks
#DontLetYourBuilderTalkYouOutOfBuildingTheSidewalk
#FoundOnFoot
#ShadeParade
#TheSidewalkFoundation

Nashville's Sidewalk Tracker - a visualization of why you are not currently walking from A to B on a new sidewalk

I'm often asked, 'where are the new sidewalks.'  Despite increases in sidewalk funding, our large city-county of 532 sq miles still feels void of decent walkability. 

 It is arguably hard to tell that we are making strides in timely fashion.

  This map is clear example why Nashvillians are not feeling progress.

These tiny blips and dots represent complete (green), under construction (red), scheduled construction (orange), in design (purple) and planned (blue) . 

Nashville's Sidewalk Tracker

ROOT NASHVILLE & WHY TREES MATTER TO PEDESTRIANS

Shade Parade began 5 years ago with the idea that better infrastructure (ie more sidewalks in Nashville) would increase walking (the 'parade' part) but that shade could too (ie more tree cover because Nashville is HOT!) is a critical piece of solving our walking woes.

Nashville is experiencing rapid growth and with it quick depletion of our tree canopy.  This is felt most acutely in neighborhoods such as the Nations where whole blocks seem to have been torn down and rebuilt in the blink of an eye.  'Just since 2008, the tree canopy in the urban core has dropped from 28 percent to 24 percent, a loss of roughly 9,000 trees a year'.  For a pedestrian, this tree canopy loss means exposure to the elements including the searing summer sun.  As anyone can imagine, arriving at your destination drenched with sweat is never optimal.  

'Nashville’s mayor, David Briley, announced a campaign to restore and enlarge the city’s tree canopy called Root Nashville.  Root Nashville will be overseen by the city and the Cumberland River Compact, an environmental nonprofit, and funded through a combination of public, corporate, foundation and private dollars. Together with several municipal departments and other nonprofit organizations, the initiative aims to plant 500,000 trees in Davidson County by 2050'.

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REMEMBER:

DO NOT PLANT TREES UNDER OVERHEAD WIRES 

OR IN THE RIGHT OF WAY 

(AKA future site of sidewalks!)

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Opinion

More Trees, Happier People

When cities grow, green space dies. Replanting it has been shown to lift the human spirit.

Click to read full article --- NY TIMES ARTICLE

At 20 mph, a pedestrian has a 95% chance of survival if struck. 20 is plenty on residential streets.

20 is Plenty.

At 20 mph, a pedestrian has a 95% chance of survival if struck.

At 40mph, the chance of survival is reduced to 20%.

As speed increases, your cone of vision narrows.

20 is plenty on residential streets.

20 is plenty when passing pedestrians.

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Remember - pedestrians are to walk against traffic (not with traffic).  It's the law. 

What does the LA Cougar have to do with Nashville's Sidewalk Woes?

LA Times article - Mountain Lion overpass / 101 Freeway
LA Times - mountain-lion-freeway-bridge


Last night, I went with my family to see Steve Winter talk about photographing big cats for National Geographic.  It was completely enthralling.  One of the most striking things he spoke of was a land bridge, to cross the 101 freeway in Los Angeles, to allow mountain lions safe passage and access to a much larger terrain. 

This project is being spearheaded by volunteers and by private donation.

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To build a bridge for mountain lions, wildlife activists need $60 million

As 101 Freeway traffic streaked past, a dozen conservationists and fundraisers gathered this week just west of Liberty Canyon Road in Agoura Hills, their eyes alternating between maps they carried and the contours of a canyon where mountain lions hunt and breed.

But it wasn’t the big cats they were looking for. Their target, instead, was a patch of land that could anchor a 200-foot-long, 165-foot-wide overpass spanning a stretch of freeway that carries 100,000 vehicles each day.  Click 1st link for remainder of article.

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This topic, sat with me in part because of my persistent interest in the safety and health of pedestrians in Nashville. 

See Nashville Pedestrian Death Registry.ORG

Nashville is a large city/county of over 500 square miles.  We have 19% of its streets sidewalked.  At our current rate of production, none alive today will see this job done.

The notion of private funding major projects like the land bridge above is being done in other cities and it raises the notion of doing it in Nashville to build sidewalks.

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The Sidewalk Foundation.ORG

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20 is Plenty!

20 is Plenty.

20 is plenty...on our local neighborhood streets.

20 mph is plenty...when passing a pedestrian.

20 is plenty...when passing a runner.

20 is plenty...when you see a bicyclist.

20 is plenty...when you see children playing

Other cities have reduced their speed limits on local streets as part of Vision Zero. 

Could Nashville?

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Maybe we shift gears from Walking Districts to the creation of Walking Cities.  Speed limit reduction could go a long way to helping pedestrians feel safe and be safe.

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The Sidewalk Foundation.Org

Nashville Needs Sidewalks on FB

Pedestrian Death Registry.Org

Found on Foot on Instagram

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Another interesting article: pedestrian deaths are not as simple as 'drunk walking'

Nashville Pedestrian Death Registry is working to detail all pedestrian deaths in our city.  How, why, where, when do these events occur and under what conditions. Prior to initiating this project in 2017, it did feel that most assumed that alcohol or drugs were involved and there is definitely some who fall into this unfortunate category.  If we make this assumption, people seem to shrug their shoulders and put it into the bucket of 'not much can be done' - people will be intoxicated and they will make mistakes.    The article below, which has been edited, highlights were the pitfalls are when we don't dig deeper and we just assume that this is an inevitable event due to poor choices. 






To Read, Please Click on LINK:  No, 'Drunk Walking' is not causing the rise in pedestrian deaths

Edited article:


The Detroit Free Press reported on one reason America's pedestrians are dying at a higher rate: the growing number of bigger, more dangerous vehicles. It seemed like coverage of pedestrian safety might turn a corner and get over the impulse to blame the victim.


It didn’t last. A new report from PBS News Hour reported, “Pedestrian deaths are up nationwide, fueled by people who walk while drunk.” (which is produced by the Pew Charitable Trusts).
Except that’s not what the evidence says.


PBS's Bergal’s whole case rests on the fact that about 2,000 people who were struck and killed while walking last year had a blood alcohol level in excess of the legal limit — an increase of 300 since 2014.  


The data actually shows that drunk victims are a smaller share of total pedestrian fatalities today than they were in 2014.  Since 2014, pedestrian fatalities have increased 22 percent, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association. The stats reported by PBS News Hour work out to a smaller 18 percent increase in the same period, meaning drunk victims are a smaller share of all pedestrian victims today than in 2014.


In other words, the increase in pedestrian fatalities is clearly not “fueled by people who walk while drunk.”


Bergal reported:

In Austin, where a dozen drunken walkers died in 2016 and seven died in 2017, many crashes were on a stretch of Interstate 35, an eight-lane, high-speed highway divided by a concrete barrier, said police Detective Pat Oborski. The highway is lined with fast-food restaurants on one side and low-cost motels on the other.

Drunken pedestrians cross the highway, going back and forth between the motels and restaurants located on frontage roads, Oborski says. While there’s a bridge over the highway about a quarter of a mile away, some people figure it’s easier to run across than to walk to the bridge.

Without realizing it, Bergal is describing one of the great threats to pedestrians: Dangerous, high-speed arterial roads without safe crossings. These conditions put people on foot at the greatest risk.


Stories like this cause real harm. They give officials in cities like Austin cover not to do anything but blame the victims. They perpetuate the marginalization of people with no choice but to walk on dangerous streets, who are more likely to be poor, black, or brown.


The more press coverage of pedestrians fatalities blames victims, the less pressure there is to rethink the eight-lane speedways and dangerous SUV designs that jeopardize people’s lives.

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