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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'Pedestrians are 2-3 x more likely to suffer a fatality when struck by an SUV or pickup truck than when struck by a passenger car'

Interesting read...most buy SUVs for the look, space and the safety (their own).  'SUVs, with their higher front-end profile, are at least twice as likely as cars to kill the walkers, joggers and children they hit'.  This is a new angle to consider - how these vehicles effect the safety of others particularly those on foot.


As someone highly interested in tracking these deaths, see https://www.nashvillepedestriandeathregistry.org/, the type of vehicle driven should be listed in the data collected on each pedestrian death.




TO READ ARTICLE, CLICK ON LINK:  https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2018/06/28/suvs-killing-americas-pedestrians/646139002/

This picture says it all.  Everything is geared to the person IN THE CAR and NOT someone on foot.  The width of the road, the height of the signage.  This is NOT a safe or healthy place for a pedestrian.

Death on foot: America's love of SUVs is killing pedestrians America's love for SUVs is killing pedestrians, and federal safety regulators have known for years.

Eric D. Lawrence, Nathan Bomey and Kristi Tanner, Detroit Free Press/USA TODAY NETWORK

‎7‎:‎30‎ ‎PM June 29, 2018

Highlights from the article:

Almost 6,000 pedestrians died on or along U.S. roads in 2016 alone — nearly as many Americans as have died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002. Data analyses by the Free Press/USA TODAY and others show that SUVs are the constant in the increase and account for a steadily growing proportion of deaths. 

Their investigation found: 

• Federal safety regulators have known for years that SUVs, with their higher front-end profile, are at least twice as likely as cars to kill the walkers, joggers and children they hit, yet have done little to reduce deaths or publicize the danger.
• A federal proposal to factor pedestrians into vehicle safety ratings has stalled, with opposition from some automakers. 
• The rising tide of pedestrian deaths is primarily an urban plague that kills minorities at a disproportionate rate.
• It is most prominent in cities both in the industrial heartland and warm-weather spots on the nation’s coasts and Sun Belt. Detroit; Newark, New Jersey; St. Louis; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Miami, San Bernardino, California, Birmingham, Alabama; Tampa; Fayetteville, North Carolina; and Phoenix had the 10 highest per-capita death rates among cities with populations of at least 200,000 in 2009-16.

Look at the grill height.  You can see, that if struck, how much more damaging an SUV would be to your vital organs. 

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety calculated an 81 percent increase in single-vehicle pedestrian fatalities involving SUVs in 2009-16. The Free Press/USA TODAY analysis of the same federal data, counting vehicles that struck and killed pedestrians rather than the number of people killed, showed a 69 percent increase in SUV involvement.

'Pedestrians are 2-3 x more likely to suffer a fatality when struck by an SUV or pickup truck than when struck by a passenger car'




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Idle-Free City?

The heat and exhaust from cars can be overwhelming for pedestrians - especially at this time of year.

Just a reminder and something to consider