Note: The Citizens to Preserve Overton Park and Get Off Our Lawn (GOOL) are raising $4,000 in support of the upcoming shuttle trial from the Overton Square parking garage to Overton Park.  The amount includes the $2,000 that the Memphis Zoo had promised but has since revoked. 

Please contribute at https://www.ioby.org/project/overton-park-shuttle

greensward 2

It’s always uncomfortable – if not painful – to watch two friends fight with each other.

The only thing worse is when three friends do it, and that’s certainly what’s happening at Overton Park with the Memphis Zoo, Overton Park Conservancy, and Citizens to Preserve Overton Park.  Come to think of it, there’s a fourth entity in this controversy: City of Memphis.

In other words, there are a lot of smart people involved in this debate, and surely, with all this brain power, there is a solution that can defuse this controversy and point the way to the future.

That said, surely, everyone can agree to a fundamental principle that should be an anchor value for city government: parks are not parking lots.

Cars, Not Again?

It seems that for decades, Memphians have been protecting Overton Park from cars, dating back to the early 1970s when park lovers fought to prevent the interstate from plowing through it.  It resulted in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that set out the rule that federal highways can only be built through parks if all other reasonable alternatives have been exhausted.

With that rich history in mind, what are the reasonable options for providing parking for zoo-goers without putting cars on the Greensward?  We understand that some park lovers are more opposed than we are to a shuttle running on interior park roads from a parking area on the east side of the park (note: we have heard from many people we respect, including Stacey Greenberg – see her comment below – about the problems with shuttles inside the park and the disruption to the bike infrastructure; their arguments are persuasive).

The solution that seems to be gaining ground is a parking garage.  Memphis operates on a mindset that parking should be close and convenient so the Zoo’s suggestion for a parking garage seems consistent with that attitude.  The best location for it is in the maintenance off N. Parkway at the former eastern entrance to the zoo that so many of us used when we were kids.  Any other location runs the risk – unless the garage is underground – of it becoming an eyesore similar to the garage at Memphis International Airports.

Memphis Mayor A C Wharton said the 400-space, four-level garage would cost $5 million and city administration officials said they would not contribute to its construction.  Zoo officials estimate the cost of a 600-space garage at $12-15 million, which includes cleaning up and moving the zoo maintenance area.  As a point of reference, the Overton Square garage cost $16 million for 435 spaces but it included the cost of a one million cubic feet detention basin under it.

First Things First

We hope city officials will reconsider their position on garage funding, because if a garage is the ultimate solution, it would also benefit park users who are rediscovering the park under the thoughtful management of the Conservancy.  The mayor is right when he said that parking on the Greensward is not the “highest and best use” for the parkland, but we think that it is in the highest and best interest of City of Memphis to participate in a funding solution that brings this conflict to a close.

While we are admirers of the photography of William Eggleston, one of Memphis’s great artistic talents, we assume that the cost of moving the General Services maintenance facility on the eastern side of Overton Park to provide a site for the Eggleston Museum is not minor.  At this point, addressing the current opportunities and challenges, perhaps, the museum, if it wants space in Overton Park, should be directed to a location in the area of the existing art museum and art college – or a location at Audubon Park.  That would allow City of Memphis to reallocate the money for the move of the maintenance facilities to solving the immediate challenge of a garage solution.  (Note: see comment that says that Eggleston Museum supporters have agreed to pay these costs.)

The people on all sides seem passionate about their points of view, but truth be told, we have been surprised by the attitude of zoo officials, which has alternated between petulant and insulting and hyperbolic. If there was one well-deserved skill that these officials have shown time after time over the years, it has been their professional demeanor and the interest in serving the broad interest of Memphis.  In this case, however, their frustration, if not pique, is showing by their petty decision to withdraw funding for a shuttle that would take people from the Overton Square garage to the zoo and the park and by statements that seem to ignore other users to the park and the reality of an even busier future for Overton Park.

So far, the Overton Park Conservancy, which has taken the right position in setting its goal as removing cars from the Greensward, has shown admirable maturity for a new organization in its efforts to mediate the various interests and to identify a solution.  We assume that a similar level of maturity and patience will be exhibited by all sides if an answer can be reached expediently and if a plan to implement can begin quickly.

Parks Aren’t Parking Lots

Meanwhile, the Citizens to Preserve Overton Park continues its role as advocates for the park’s potential, and based on its effective and correct opposition to the city engineer’s plans to turn the Greensward into a deep drainage basin, it would seem that everyone involved in this current issue would have realized that the days for parking on the Greensward were coming to an end.

We know that overflow parking for the zoo has been on the Greensward for several decades, but we also understand that the accelerating green ethos in Memphis is shaping our quality of life and the priorities that shape it.  It’s often hard to realize that Memphis is short order has become home to an active, influential movement creating bike lanes, greenlines, pedestrian/bike paths, and high quality parks with Shelby Farms Park and Overton Park.

As city government considers the implementation of Jeff Speck’s recommendation that would transform Riverside Drive into a two-lane street so a bike lane can be added and parking can be moved out of Tom Lee Park, it seems reasonable that its position is to bring the same attitude toward Overton Park.  As Mr. Speck said in advocating for the change, real urban parks don’t have parking in them.  No one is advocating that all parking should be removed from Overton Park, but it seems logical that it is not expanded to turn an Olmstead Park into a parking lot.

As the parties in this dispute work toward a solution, it’s worth remembering that the public’s #1 priority, according to Sustainable Shelby, is for local government to create a great public realm.  It’s hard for us to think of any place in Memphis that more exemplifies quality public realm than Overton Park.

A Monument to Memphis’s Progress

In addition, Overton Park is a 342-acre monument to the late 19th century “Greater Memphis Movement,” when our city was the national leader of the Progressive Era with the design of Memphis’ landmark parks and parkways system.   Memphis quadrupled its size in 1899 when it annexed seven square miles.

John Olmsted, nephew and adopted son of the legendary Frederick Law Olmsted Sr., father of New York’s Central Park, was hired to lay out new parks but he said, after touring Memphis on a bicycle, that because of the growth of Memphis, it should develop two large parks, one on the river south of the city and the other at the eastern border connected by a system of parkways.

As a result, City of Memphis purchased about 342 acres of on old farm tract called Lea’s Woods, which became the early Overton Park, and 340 acres on the Mississippi River which became Riverside Park.  In the end, the complex and ambitious Memphis project included the redesign and development of three of the city’s four original 1819 squares; the design of three new small urban parks, including Forrest, Confederate, and Gaston Parks; the design and development of Overton and Riverside Parks; and the design for the new system of parkways to connect these parks and spur development in the newly annexed areas.

From the beginning, it was clear that Overton Park had a special place in the hearts of Memphians.  It’s a connection that continues to this day, as evidenced by the current debate about parking on the Greensward.