Union Avenue to Become a Model Street

In Marc Cohn’s homage to the Bluff City, “Walking in Memphis,” the singer shares his experience of touring local sites and reaching them, presumably, on foot. Memphians, though, know that much of Cohn’s described route is marked with uncomfortable, inhospitable, or downright dangerous conditions for pedestrians. The lyrics specifically call out Union Avenue on Cohn’s jaunt around Memphis. Today, elongated driveway aprons, surface parking lots, and crumbling or sun-baked sidewalks characterize much of this primary artery through Downtown, the Medical District, and Midtown. In short, it’s an environment oriented toward and dominated by cars. With our improvement projects underway, however, Memphians will one day be able to stroll down Union Avenue with a spring in their step.

In the years ahead, the City will embark on a major reconstruction of Union Avenue. The first segment to reach construction will be from Marshall Ave. to Manassas St., and is known as the Union Avenue Complete Streets project. Proposed improvements will heighten the safety of pedestrians and bicyclists along the corridor, enhance transit stops, beautify the street, modernize traffic signals, and manage storm water run-off with eco-friendly approaches. This first segment will not only set the tone for the reconstruction of the rest Union Avenue over the next five to ten years, but also the general direction in which the City is moving in regards to high-quality, people-oriented street design.

We presented and sought feedback on plans to retrofit this key segment of Union Avenue in the Medical District at a public meeting on Jan. 8, 2019. If you missed the meeting but would still like to be informed and provide input, please download the presentation and questionnaire below.

DOWNLOAD: Public Meeting Presentation from Jan. 8, 2019

DOWNLOAD: Questionnaire for Union Ave. Complete Streets Project

Instructions for the Questionnaire: Review the presentation before completing. Once filled out, scan or take photos of the questionnaire form and email to Maria Bruner (mbruner@phdmemphis.com) with subject line of “Union Avenue Complete Streets”. The deadline to submit completed forms is Jan. 22, 2019.

Here are some preliminary responses to common topics voiced by meeting attendees last night:

• Protected Intersection Video: At the meeting we showed a clip from a six-minute video about protected intersections. Some attendees wanted to view the video in its full length. Follow this link to watch the video. Though new the US, this design concept is proven abroad and quickly expanding domestically. Its incorporation in this project ensures that Memphis remains in the avantgarde of street design.
• Marshall Ave. Intersection: The current proposed conceptual design does not depict significant changes at this intersection, which many individuals rightfully feel needs more attention. One popular idea is to widen the sidewalk in front of Sun Studio and create a small plaza. This would slow down drivers turning right from Union onto Marshall, and provide ample space for people to linger and take photos in front of an iconic Memphis attraction. We are not excluding this intersection from the project, but are holding off on presenting proposals until conversations with adjacent stakeholders and the Tennessee Department of Transportation progress further. The latter is more of the primary reason, as we are in talks with TDOT — as well as other sources — to possibly secure more funds for the project and ensure that a consistent level of high-quality design can extend into the Marshall Ave. intersection.
• Transit Service: Some observers stated that the current proposal does not consider bus service and stops. MATA, which sits on the project’s steering committee, is preparing to restructure its route system and launch a so-call Bus Rapid Transit service along Union Avenue. This separate but coordinated project to launch the BRT line and install the appropriate infrastructure — known as the Innovation Corridor — will be the means for reconstructing much of the rest of Union Avenue. As MATA progresses with its design and stop analysis for the Innovation Corridor, the design for the Union Avenue Complete Streets project will adjust as needed.
• Extent of the Proposed Bike Lanes: The proposed bike lanes shown in the conceptual design would connect the existing protected bike lanes on Manassas St. (which received some national accolades recently) with other existing bike lanes in the Edge District. In this way, the project will fill in a gap in the bikeway network and provide greater connectivity for people using bicycles and e-scooters. What’s more, new protected bike lanes on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Ave. are due to be installed this spring and will connect the Medical District (via Manassas) with Midtown. At this time, the City does not plan to extend the proposed bike lanes on Union west of Marshall or east of Manassas. Again, the proposal to add bike lanes on Union Ave. applies to this one block only (Marshall Ave. to Manassas St.) in order to improve connectivity within the existing bikeway network.

As mentioned above, this project will model the high-quality, people-oriented design that we intend to apply to all major street improvement projects moving forward. This transformation of our streets will not take place over night. Three-quarters of a century were needed to arrive at the car-oriented streets of today. The shift to a street network that truly balances the needs of all users and prioritizes the safety of the most vulnerable will similarly take decades, but must start at some point. The Union Ave. Complete Streets project is one of those starting points.

For updates about the project, continue to follow along on the blog or our Facebook and Twitter accounts (@BikePedMemphis).

A public meeting held on Jan. 8, 2019 presented proposed changes to Union Ave. from Marshall Ave. to Manassas St.

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Walker Ave. Becomes Testing Ground for Designs New to Memphis and the U.S.

The temporary traffic circle located at Wellington and Walker is part of a one-month traffic calming demonstration project.

Despite its name, Walker Avenue in South Memphis isn’t such a great place to get around by foot, or on a bicycle for that matter. Talk to residents along the street about passing car traffic, and you’ll hear a common theme of speeding and running of stop signs. A recent history of crashes, including one involving a three-year-old pedestrian in 2017 (his injuries were fortunately minor), support this narrative. A recent traffic count and speed measurement we conducted found that a select few drivers recklessly travel this street at speeds over 60 miles per hour (the posted speed limit is 35 MPH, but one could make a case for an even lower regulatory limit on the residential stretch from South Third St. to Mississippi Blvd.). Fortunately for the residents of the area, this segment of Walker Ave. falls within the boundaries of the Big Jump project.

Towards the goal of dramatically boosting the number of people walking and bicycling in South Memphis, the Big Jump will deliver safer streets to the area. Some of these improvements may include traffic calming features not commonly seen in Memphis. Enter Walker Ave.

With this demonstration project, the City can provide temporary examples of what these new traffic calming features look and feel like — allowing citizens a chance to experience them in real life, not just on a presentation slide — but also prototype them on a street with known safety concerns in preparation of permanent safety improvements to come. This kind of demonstration with temporary, low-cost materials has become popular among communities around the country, and allows the City and residents to experience a particular design before irreversibly committing money and resources to a permanent version that may not go over well or have the intended impact.

The project was conceived from the study tour that members of the Big Jump Advisory Committee took to the Netherlands in June 2018. Eric Neimeyer with The Works, Inc.  (a community development corporation based in South Memphis) saw an opportunity in Walker Avenue for the street to act as a demonstration for safety improvements. A fair number of people walk or bike along the street as is, but a high number of children-specific activities and uses along the street (an elementary school, park, library, community center, and Knowledge Quest are located directly on Walker Ave.) bring extra attention to the need for safety improvements. We coordinated with The Works, Inc. to host a community meeting, meet with stakeholders along the street, and canvass residents door-to-door to seek feedback and share information about the project.

A group of volunteers consisting of neighborhood residents as well as faculty and students from the adjacent Ida B. Wells Academy joined us and staff from The Works, Inc. on a Saturday morning late in October. Several hours later, Walker Ave. boasted some new features.

Volunteers from the neighborhood worked with us one Saturday morning to install the demonstration project.

As mentioned above, many of those features are rare in Memphis, but commonly used in other US cities to help slow traffic, including:

• Traffic Circles

The traffic circle, seen here at night, helps to slow down vehicles through the intersection and prevent the running of the stop sign — a complaint commonly heard from residents during the door-to-door canvassing.

Signage along the project provides an explanation of the individual elements as well as general background.

• Bump-Outs

These temporary bump-outs have been enhanced with decorative dots (using the school colors of Ida B. Wells Academy) as well as with some vertical element that light up at night.

• Pinch Points

A pinch point or neck down narrows the street and helps to slow down traffic. Permanent versions can include landscaping.

One feature, though, is not just new to Memphis, but also to the U.S.: Slow Shoulders. Also known as advisory shoulders or advisory bike lanes, slow shoulders may seem unusual at first, but are commonly used in other countries and have recently been introduced in some US cities. This demonstration version on Walker Ave. is one of the first of such facilities in the country. With slow shoulders, drivers stay in the center lane of the street, and merge into the adjacent shoulder on the right to pass on-coming vehicles. This may seem confusing, but actually reflects the way that people for the most part drive down Walker Ave. or neighborhood streets of similar width: they stay toward the center of the street and weave to the right as needed to pass on-coming cars. In other communities, slow shoulders have effectively slowed traffic and helped create safer streets for biking and walking.

Slow shoulders, a.k.a. advisory shoulders, may seem radical at first glance, but often reinforce the way most people drive down relatively narrow neighborhood streets.

The demonstration will remain on the ground until the first week of December 2018. Depending on the results of this test (including data collected and input from residents along Walker Ave. and side streets), the City will return to the street in 2019, re-pave it, and install permanent versions of some or all of these approaches.

To see the project for yourself, visit Walker Avenue between Wellington St. and Mississippi Blvd. Be sure to check out the oral history art piece at Walker Ave. and Lauderdale St. installed by local artist and city planner Roger Ekstrom as part of the demonstration. Ekstrom worked with a 12th-grade student from Soulsville Charter School to interview a neighborhood resident and turn his tales from the neighborhood’s past into the art piece. The “Culture Cube” is mounted to a utility pole and doubles as a pedestrian-scale street light at night.