Memphis City Council – the Rodney Dangerfield of local politics – does so much right and gets so little credit for it.
Bill Morrison is the architect of this year’s budget resolution. Jim Strickland pushes for more cuts in costs. Shea Flinn is courageous enough to demand the kind of honest debate that illuminates issues.
Myron Lowery sacrificed any chance to get elected as mayor with principled stands. Even Barbara Swearingen Ware voted for cuts to the salaries of the highest-paid city employees (we’re trying to ignore her comments about the dog park). Reid Hedgepeth led the way to jump start the plan for the Fairgrounds, getting the project under way to add a promenade, stage, kinetic lighting and fountains.
Add to the list Chairman Harold Collins who recently gave city staff an ultimatum: Get serious about biking lanes or we’ll make you serious.
Show of Force
It was a welcome show of forceful support for the hard work by a number of bike/ped advocates, notably Livable Memphis, and is an encouraging sign that the importance of livable neighborhoods has reached the mainstream of local policy. The problem has long been getting city engineers to make it happen, and Chairman Collins left little doubt that he’s prepared to champion the cause and force the issue if necessary.
It’s high time. It’s not just Portland that’s pursuing all kinds of bicycling initiatives these days. From Fort Wayne to Louisville, city governments are thinking of new ways to support burgeoning bike communities, including bike-sharing.
The U.S. Department of Transportation reported this week that biking and walking trips have increased 25 percent since 2001. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is using the increase to continue his push for safe alternatives to driving. ”By making biking and walking safer and more accessible, we’ll be able to provide Americans with more choices and help foster more active, livable communities,” LaHood said in a press release from DOT.
Hearing Test
Back here at home, we are left to feel hopeful because MATA put bike racks on its fixed-route buses. But, with 100% federal funds from the ARRA stimulus program, the city engineer has the chance to prove that he heard Chairman Collins. I
In the past, the engineer’s office has shown little regard for bicycling or “complete streets,” but proving that hope springs eternal, we are hoping that the engineer’s office will make bike facilities part of its plans. In addition, it would be a clear signal that he heard Mr. Collins if he led a campaign for a bike/ped coordinator and included bike facilities (striped bike lanes, signed shared road or a signed wide outside line) in all paving projects.
As for striped bike lanes, the only sections we have are on Shady Grove Road between Briarcrest and Humphreys – about one mile long – and another short section on Briarcrest – about half a mile. As for signed roads, we have the City of Memphis bike routes. They are recreational routes – about 60 miles – so they aren’t the same as “sign shared roadways” (which would include an emblem like “share the road”).
We Did It
We often act in Memphis as if we are mere spectators to forces shaping our lives. In truth, we have exactly the kind of city that our policies set out to create – sprawling, unhealthy, unbikable, and more.
As a result, it’s no surprise that we are ranked by Bicycling magazine as one of the three worst biking cities in the U.S. It’s exactly what we set out to be. All three of the worst cities have suffered from suburban sprawl and don’t have enough bike lanes. Efforts to improve cycling have also been ineffective, said Loren Mooney, Bicycling‘s editor-in-chief.
Bicycling magazine released its list of bike-friendly cities in America and said Birmingham joined Jacksonville, Fla., and Memphis as one of the least bike-friendly cities. “Despite community interest in cycling, these cities have fallen victim to suburban sprawls that lack bike lanes, and slow-going planning and implementation of improvements,” said a news release.
The Right ROI
Keith Laughlin, president of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, said that cities that invest seriously in walking and biking access are demonstrating solid results. The lead example: $57 million has been spent in Portland on a 300-mile bikeway/pedestrian network since 1991, and $100 million in trail investment is planned for the future. By 2040, he said Portland’s net benefit from better health and reduced fuel savings will be $1.2 billion, and 8:1 ROI.
Anthony Siracusa, the guiding force at Revolutions Community Bicycle Shop, sums it up best: Biking “is an indicator for quality of life for a city. It’s an indicator for livability and democracy. It’s not a matter of whether it is a priority. It’s not optional any more. It’s a necessity.
“People are moving out of the city. We have to reconsider business as usual. How can we improve the infrastructure to keep our tax base? We have to take a fundamentally different approach.”
No Business As Usual
He said that there is a “new shift in leadership opinion,” citing Sustainable Shelby as a catalyst and pointing to its biking strategies and the Metropolitan Planning Organization’s growing understanding that its job is about more than cars.
“Cities that promote cycling also are cities that seem to take care of their people and have great quality of life,” Siracusa said. “People are moving out of Memphis. We have to reconsider business as usual. It’s no longer a matter of whether cycling is a priority. It’s now a necessity. There’s not an option anymore, because this is about more than cycling. It’s about making Memphis a livable city.”
And that, in the end, will help determine if Memphis’ future is as a successful talent and job magnet and a city of choice.
I am glad to see that the cycling community has found a voice through Mr. Collins.
Who is Roger Dangerfield?
That should probably be Rodney Dangerfield, not Roger. He was the comedian whose tag line was “I get no respect!”. I wish people would proofread their articles before publishing. *sigh*
City engineers need to get on board with bike and pedestrian friendly infrastructure. They’re educated and show know better.
Sasha:
Sorry that proofreading takes precedence over content in your world.
We appreciate your catching the error. We write these posts while trying to make a living and working at our firm, so we hope you can be understanding.
Roger Dangerfield is the guy who holds the paint bucket that puts the stripe on the street.
Tell Roger to start downtown, in the core, in the place where you need the most second order change of this kind (bike lanes) in Memphis. He can work his way out from there. When we forget to spread resources to our core because we give up on it due to a lack of oversight and control on past projects, we undercut it’s ability to recover from problems. Anyone think that an inner-city dense biz district downtown area MIGHT have a different recovery time and/or pattern than a BURB?
I do, and I think Roger D. knows this too. I don’t wonder why downtown has such problems. I bet I could come up with a plan of doable things that aren’t expensive to bring it back. There are some already in place.
Bike lanes will help, maybe bike parking racks with secure locks,
Daily Sidewalk washing will help.
Court Square bands every day will help. Maybe a permanent system would be good there. Maybe some big acts would help.
Moving all criminal justice services and courts out to the penal farm would help, get it out of the front door.
More hotdog carts at lunch, incentives for businesses to move there would be good.
Maybe an affordable office building for ex home based businesses that have outgrown the hacienda would be a good idea,
Make all 1st floors with storefronts stores, delis, restaurants, dry-cleaners, office supplies, and groceries and a greengrocer,
Make what space is left loft apartments with mixed-use permission and drive down the costs by using solar-powerdish powered utilities to cool and heat the buildings and passive fiberoptic solar lighting distribution systems. We could design a passive fiber optic solar lighting system and fixtures such as overheads (which already exist) and table lamps and other clever devices with our proprietary Memphis Connector system that terminates in a wall plate, so you can move them around and plug in a fiber optic instead of an electric chord instead of a bulb during the day, and, you could augment it with LED’s for nightime operation, or color changing for mood lighting. Simple, cheap, doable. It’s all already patented.
You could design the apartments with all kinds of neat things, like a sonically sculpted veiwing and listening area, quiet bedrooms, kithens with quartz countertops with peltier heating/cooling to keep food the temp you like, and stainless commercial size sinks, superinsulated fridges and ovens, Everyone would want to live there. It wouldn’t load the system down either. A new Memphis, supergreen.
I’ve heard Harold Collins say things that made me say out loud, ” My God! One more man on City Council that can THINK! Hooray!”.
There’s a lot of potential in Memphis, but, it can’t stay “potential” any longer as Memphis is about to be labeled, “spoiled, throw out passed due date”. There is a lot of Hope in Memphis, and that’s good, but potential and hope will not be enough.
ACTION is the thing that is going to make it happen, along with doable PLANS, that are DESIGNED to succeed and ADDRESSING REAL PROBLEMS HONESTLY and APPROPRIATELY. I think that has begun, it’s underway.
That is the newest thing in Memphis and I don’t think you could ask for anything better than that if you tried!
OOPS, I forgot parking decks on the north end, you’ll need them, and retrofitting old ones so they ALL have electric vehicle charging stations built in. BLAM, Supergreen Memphis. That’s where you’re going to want to be.
Brian, can I get you to spray paint out of the back of my pickup? I think it would be a fun project.
About a year, we suggested tongue in cheek (but not too firmly planted there) that we start a guerilla bike lane project. We all get our cans of paint and just start striping off for them.
If God tells Wain Gaskins, the City Engineer, that bike lanes are important, we could have them. If not, we will have more auto lanes. Robert Moses could not have had a better acolyte. It is time for him to go.
Memphis should reclaim huge amounts of asphalt for wider sidewalks, exclusive bike lanes, and grass strips. Think about how this would improve the attractiveness of Memphis as a world class City; but I’ve just about given up on any improvements along these lines.
Safe routes to schools, neighborhood stabilization, smaller high schools (limit to 500 students), multi-use public facilities, focus on small projects instead of the things like Beale Street Landing, child development centers in neighborhoods coordinated with MCS planning…………….. Oh, to hell with it. Memphis sucks and so do the Shelby suburbs that think they are not part of Memphis.
“There’s a lot of potential in Memphis, but, it can’t stay “potential” any longer as Memphis is about to be labeled, “spoiled, throw out passed due date”. There is a lot of Hope in Memphis, and that’s good, but potential and hope will not be enough.”
Well said Brian. We have a lot of due dates coming up so these next few years will be critical. We’ll see.
Well Scott, as you know, since you have seen my old front door, I’ll spray paint just about anything.
SCM, that includes a house, a pickup truck bed, and bike lane, even guerilla style.
You won’t even have to tell me when or what color, Scott, you’ll wake up to a nice fresh bright red truck bed.
Aaron, thanks, I think it’s going to be close, but, we have no choice but to perform as requested. If we can show that the action we are taking is real, and that are plans are sound and the fruit is growing, we can get make any future we design happen, even if we miss one. We might get a short extension for some things, but, some things will not have one due to there being no way to work it.
Chuck,
Please don’t through Moses under the bus (Ha!) with these guys. At least Moses gave us some great parks along with Lincoln Center as he bulldozed neighborhoods. I have not seen a contribution anywhere near that magnitude coming from the local city engineer.
Is there really anyone that thinks that more than a handful of Memphians will bicycle more than a mile or so to get to and from work? 99% of the people that ride bikes do so for recreation, not for transportation. Unless that mindset is changed, I don’t see much re-engineering of the roadways.
I like Robert Moses beach and concert shell too. Couldn’t have been that bad of a guy.
I was surprised to see many Memphians riding comfort bikes to and from places all week long in all areas of Memphis especially midtown and downtown, men and women.
It may start with a few, but, it could turn into many fairly quickly if supported. You can’t just “build it and they will come” here, you have to support it too. The days of the expensive bike are changing, there are going to have to be affordable bikes and the revolutions bike shop is not set up to handle that load. Kmart needs to have an inner city location for their bike shop.
This is not a case of ‘build it and they will come’, they’re already here. While riding is still mostly recreational, local surveys show about 10% of all bike rides are transportation-related. Many of these are by choice, many aren’t. Recreational and transportation riding is growing. The younger crowd is showing more interest in bicycling as transportation than has been seen in maybe 30 years.
A truly integrated transportation system should allow access and safety for all users. Memphis is really a pretty good bicycling town, but by ignoring the needs of all users over the years it has become less friendly to anything except single occupancy vehicles. It is time that changed for many reasons.
If you agree it is time for a change, send your thanks to the Council and especially Chairman Collins for recognizing a deficiency in the City that can be fixed easier and cheaper than crime or education. In fact, good work in this area can actually help to improve those and many other problems we struggle with. Finally, get involved and keep the pressure on the Administration until we have an intelligent network of signs and lines.
I agree 100%, Stronglight.
I forgot, if you want to get more involved beyond just thanking the Council, the good folks at Livable Memphis could use your help. http://memphiscdcouncil.blogs.com/lwyl/
Stronglight:
Thanks for that. Livable Memphis is doing God’s work and all of us should be helping and supporting them.
Urbanut and Brian:
Moses was a tyrant. When he built Jones Beach, he purposely excluded the poor by engineering the access routes with overpasses too low for public buses. Many of his projects were built at the expense of viable neighborhoods that were destroyed; and for me he ruined baseball by forcing the Brooklyn Dodgers to leave New York. (See Robert Caro’s The Power Broker).
Well, if you want to get existentialist about it, watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMkXA6kqNsw
If you don’t think it’s true, you haven’t met many international bankers of note. I have.
The point?
Powerbrokers are pawns. They have a narrow corridor they can operate in. They live in a small box with few options and most aren’t good.
Maybe the hype isn’t accurate to the reality.
Robert Caro is one scary-assed great writer.