The debate about the future alignment of Riverside Drive is about much more than a road. In truth, it is another indication of how tenuous the movement for a more livable Memphis is.
That’s why bike lanes are about more than bikes and Riverside Drive is about more than a street.
Bike lanes are harbingers of a more livable city with higher quality public spaces – despite conventional wisdom, city streets are indeed public spaces – and in making Memphis’ public spaces better and in making a stronger commitment to urban design, we are in fact investing in a more successful future for Memphis.
Nationally known planner, New Urbanist, and author Jeff Speck said: “We have the luxury of asking ourselves what kind of street Riverside Drive wants to be. Surely it can still hold cars, but the downtown would benefit tremendously if it were to hold cars moving a bit less speedily, alongside pedestrians and cyclists.”
More Than About A Street
In the end, Riverside Drive is about much more than bike lanes.
It’s also about providing more parking spaces in response to the growing popularity of Tom Lee Park and Beale Street Landing.
It’s about creating a more park-like roadway through an area that is now essentially a park setting.
It’s about using this prominent place to send the message that Memphis’ new national publicity suggesting that it cares more about people than cars was not an aberration
Surely if there is one place in Memphis where cars should not get priority, the riverfront is it.
It’s about recognizing how a high quality of life is crucial to attracting and creating better jobs that are in turn attracted to the young professionals who are in turn moving to cities with high quality of life.
U-Turn Needed
We should have learned long ago the lessons about how a singular focus on cars has degraded the quality of life of Memphis and Shelby County, driving up public debt, increasing maintenance costs, and paving over potential for a more livable city.
There’s little doubt that traditional thinking here has produced too many roads with too many lanes in too many places. Lessons from other cities are convincing in the way they teach that changes may be difficult, but once in place, they receive wide support and appreciation as a vital part of the cities’ fabric.
We know that change is always difficult. Just the simple notion of building bike lanes (like successful cities everywhere) regularly sends up howls of protest, much less a serious commitment to a bikeable community.
Considering that Memphis in May International Festival shuts down all of Riverside Drive for a couple of weeks each year and reduces it to two lanes for that many more, it was more than a little ironic that the festival’s vice-president of programming was prominent among those in recent days taking shots at proposals to make Riverside Drive a better city street.
Not A Speck Of Doubt
We drive Riverside Drive multiple times every day and walk the riverfront often, and its evolution from four-lane raceway that often required pedestrians to make dashes across the four lanes (often to avoid racing commuters or news trucks rushing back to Channel 3 Drive) to get from east to west without getting hit has been a welcome improvement.
The alternatives for Riverside Drive are much more in keeping with the park-like setting that is being sought for the riverfront. In other words, the street should be treated as a park road rather than as a highway in keeping with the changing personality of this section of the riverfront.
As we blogged at the time, we were afraid City of Memphis erred in implementing a change from four lanes to two lanes that presented a stark and drastic change rather than testing either of the two real alternatives for Riverside Drive (the ones recently put up for public comment). That said, the present city engineer deserves credit for moving from an office that was long been seen as a barrier to a livable city to one that is now more sensitive to what makes city living more enjoyable.
Our preference for the future alignment of Riverside Drive is the one recommended by nationally known planner Jeff Speck and engineering firm Nelson Nygaard. It was included in their 74-page report delivered to Memphis Mayor A C Wharton.
Memphis In May Proves It Can Be Done
Mr. Speck drew liberally from the lessons in his latest book, Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time, and his experience as director of design for the National Endowment for the Arts and Director of Town Planning at Duany Plater-Zyberk and Co.. He is the co-author of Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream as well as The Smart Growth Manual.
Mr. Speck wrote: “Riverside Drive, which is annually narrowed and closed with little negative impact on the downtown, should be converted from a four-lane speedway to a two-lane ‘complete street,’ including parallel parking and a protected bicycle track along the Mississippi River…Canopy trees should be added where they are lacking and can be planted at limited cost.
“The potentially easiest win on the Memphis riverfront is the reconfiguration of Riverside Drive. While a vast improvement over the interstate highway that was once planned for this corridor, it still functions much like a highway, moving four to five lanes of traffic speedily through downtown, creating a high-speed barrier that discourages pedestrian activity and river access. Landscape improvements along Tom Lee Park have already made it more attractive, but have not changed its non-pedestrian nature. Does Riverside Drive need to take such a strictly automotive form?
“The answer to this question can be found each May, when one-half of the street is closed for two weeks and the entire street is closed for three weeks. While presenting some temporary inconvenience as people adjust their paths, it is clear that the City’s grid of alternative north-south streets contains more than adequate capacity to absorb the trips typically handled by Riverside Drive. Such an experience has been mirrored in American cities from coast to coast, where highway removals have repeatedly failed to cause traffic crises. From New York’s West Side Highway to San Francisco’s Embarcadero Freeway, removed road capacity has not had a negative impact on travel times.”
Celebrated placemaker Gil Penalosa has pointed out that the path to a livable city can begin slowly but pick up speed and ultimately change a city’s character for the better. Obviously, Memphis is on the early stops on this journey, but we should reject those who tell us that it cannot be done.
Why Not Memphis?
Founder and chair of Toronto-based 8-80 Cities and former Commissioner of Parks, Sport and Recreation for the City of Bogotá, Colombia, said: “Every city should have a law of two words – pedestrians first.” “This principle in action means one thing,” he explained. “Livable cities start slowly. They start with traffic slowed down to 20 m.p.h. in neighborhoods to make pedestrians safe whether they are eight or 80 years old. Bike lanes are physically separated from roadways so people who would have never considered biking feel safe pedaling their toddlers to school.
“They have public spaces that celebrate public life, including parks where people can gather, play and rest. And they have clean, fast, public transportation that gives people choices about how to get around. When Gehl Architects founding partner Helle Søholt hears people say change is impossible culturally or financially for their city, she points out that even Copenhagen had to change culturally to be as livable as it is now, with downtown squares that once served as parking lots for commuters are now ringed with restaurants and retail, linked by commercially vibrant walking streets.”
Mr. Penalosa said the cornerstones for livability are walkability, bikeability, public spaces, and public transportation. “Walkability is about designing streets for everybody and designing for pedestrians first – slow speeds, raised crosswalks, and next, make streets interesting for walkers. Bikeability isn’t about more Spandex – it’s a woman biking to a business meeting dressed exactly as if she were driving and the first step is to make bikers feel safe. Walkable streets and other public places are great equalizers; they bring people together, and they can energize people through recreation. Finally, high-speed buses with dedicated lanes are the most cost-effective way to move people, though offering choices to commuters is best of all.”
These may seem pipe dreams to many people in Memphis, but it’s being done in cities all over the U.S., and we’re hard-pressed to understand why Memphis can’t join them.
To read more about Mr. Penalosa’s cornerstones of walkable, bikeable, livable cities, click here.
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It’s hard not to read the public comments on the bike lanes and sense both a generational and class divide. Memphis is at a cross road. We must use every conceivable tool to signal to young people that we are a forward thinking city. Both globally and nationally cities that are positioning themselves as more bike centric are leaders in technology, science and the arts. Think Portland, San Francisco or Copenhagen.
So I ask Mr. Lowery and Mr. Berlin: where do you stand on the sensible proposals detailed in this article? Most importantly where is the leadership from our Mayor? Must he once again choose the past of least resistance by not leading.
The downtown roads are hardly driveable anymore with all of the potholes! Can we focus on the existing problems before creating new ones?!
Now this is the kind of forward-thinking essay we have come to expect and love from Smart City! Kudos. I drive that strip several times a week. It’s the most gorgeous drive in Memphis, and it rarely takes me more than 1.5 minutes total. It’s a river side drive, people! Enjoy it.
Intelligently thought out and written with one oversight. The automobile helped build this nation and the city in which we live. To ignore that fact is folly. I agree the city itself needs to become more livable, but bike lanes are but a fraction of the goal. Riverside has indeed become more than a way to get from here to there but the current design is untenable and the method through which roads are picked for bike lanes is also. The community should be consulted. No mandate should issue without community collaboration. The current system exists by mayorial fiat. That which effect homeowners and the public at large should never be sanctioned by decree. There must be conversation.
Indeed bike lanes have a place but absent an imperative to clean up our environment, reduce petty crime, encourage relocation inward, bike lanes will only serve 18 bikers a day as is currently reported.
Thanks, Dan. The car has been key to building the nation, but it is now an obstacle in building better cities. It’s why cities around the world are engaging in everything from road diets to congestion pricing. As we said, this isn’t about bike lanes per se. It is about creating the kind of livable city that attracts people and investments. We appreciate your comment.
Dear City Council members,
While I don’t disagree with this article please help us with the speed and traffic at riverside and Georgia.
Please consider the safety of those of us who live in the south main area and have to make a daily morning turn onto Riverside to the highway from Georgia. I am a homeowner on Front and have lived here for 6 years, this is my daily drive.
Since the change to riverside of making the bike lane, my morning commute is most deadly within one mile from my house at the riverside to 55 left turn, specifically between 7:30am and 8:10am.
I am an avid runner, have 4 bikes and love being active around memphis. The advances the city is making is awesome, but not at the safety of your citizens. This may sound over dramatic but I ask you to try to make this turn daily at 7:55am. The speed of the cars coming off the highway and those coming up riverside to get on the highway are well above the speed limit. Also, with the rooftops just added to Front street this corner has gotten busier and more are coming. Once or twice I have had a very close call but I can’t figure out another way to get on the highway without going down to Beale.
I am not directly asking you to change riverside from the bike lanes but I am asking you to do something!
I’m certain very few of you are at the Georgia /Riverside corner daily trying to make the turn and your just looking at data – try it for a week at 7:55am. So change the lanes back, put a stop light, make it a 4-way stop, there are a number of options, put a few police cars with radar guns permanently stationed there to keep it safe but please do something so the south main citizens can enjoy the outdoors because they can safely access riverfront and the highway to get to their daily activities.
Thank you. South Main owner
I’m somewhat skeptical of the claim that the automobile helped build the nation and the city of Memphis. Undoubtedly, commerce and transportation were facilitated with trucks, especially around mid-20th century; however, a not insignificant portion of our fair city was laid down prior to the 50’s, when trolleys were commonly used, that phenomenon itself leading to the streetcar suburbs. All parts of the city built during the heyday of the automobile are sorely lacking in walkability and imagination.
Re Megella, I believe you just made an argument for complete streets which often limits the ability for dangerous speeding. A traffic light at the intersection you mention is very reasonable, not to mention speed bumps of some kind for cars coming off the highway.
Interesting. Exxon Mobile, Ford and General Motors would love to hear they are obstacles to progress. This is not New York, San Fransisco or Downtown Boston. Memphis is a mid southern suburban city that has grown eastward over the last 40 years. It has done so not because of trolleys or MATA but because of the automobile. The auto is not an obstacle in Memphis. It is what keeps this city going when the majority of its inner city working population lives in the suburbs. How many of those folks ride bicycles to work daily? How many inner city folk ride to work on a bike daily? I’m all for a more livable city. But I’m in the minority. Memphis is hemorrhaging population. Bike lanes will not fix that. Answer a few questions please, how many bicycle clubs exist in Memphis? What are their numbers? Why do I only see them on rural county roads on the weekend and never riding in bike lanes during the week? How many American cities are on road diets and enforce congestion fees?
All I ask is that Smart City and others ask the question, how can we achieve the best of both worlds while recognizing the realities of transportation? Get real. We are not Amsterdam. No one is Amsterdam except Amsterdam.
The future for all cities is about transportation mobility. Some of the decisions that have caused many of the financial and quality of life problems we are now trying to solve stemmed from car-centric planning that decreased densities, hollowed out neighborhoods, drove up costs of public services, and undermined quality of life. As we wrote, the larger issue is livability, not merely bike lanes, and many other similarly sized Southern cities are already ahead of us in recreating their cities for people rather than for cars. We tend to act like we are always different and national trends do not apply here but we do this at our own peril. People, especially young talented ones, are moving to cities with high quality of life, and we are already losing in that battle. Changes like the one to Riverside Drive send a message against type – that we are, despite publicity to the contrary, a city doing dramatic and progressive things to improve our future.
Megella:
Turn left onto Kansas from Georgia. Cross over the interstate and take a left onto Virginia Ave W. and then you can do a u-turn and head onto the interstate safely without having to cross the Riverside traffic.
This is in reference to the comments made by Dan Michael.
While I do agree that the automobile has been a very influential tool in the growth of the United States, it hasn’t had much place in Memphis (comparatively). In fact, I believe that the automobile has done more harm than good. It allowed for the eastward expansion and the continuous growth occurring today. The people who moved east stayed east as many large corporations set up show outside of the downtown & midtown area. This lead to a significant decline in the quality of life for those within the city because jobs and money were leaving, thus further decreasing the city’s livability. This new initiative to improve bike access in the city will help to bring new life to downtown and encourage businesses to invest in the area.
I understand there are many factors at play that lead Memphis to where it is today, however were here now and it is our task to move the city towards continued progress.
I would recommend reading some of the books on SPRAWL, specifically Suburban Nation.
Re Mr Michael: I have to say I took umbrage at the idea that “this is not NY, SF….” We are not those cities at present because of a failure of imagination and because of the relentless, low density, eastward expansion facilitated by the automobile. This is not an anti-car argument by any means; I drive myself. If you have read the SCM blog for any length of time, you have undoubtedly encountered the fiscal arguments for better urban design. Placing bike lanes on streets is one tool among many to make our city a more pleasant place to exist and interact with others. I believe Midtown could be similar to Copenhagen if we had the will; it takes only a mustard seed of faith for great things to happen. And regarding the point that the city is hemorrhaging population: while that may be true, I did relocate from the Midwest to this fair city. There are always points of light in our shared complexes.
I’m looking for city govt to:
Fix the potholes.
Pick up trash along city streets, including Riverside.
Clean up trash in empty lots, and along the riverbank.
Ticket speeders along Riverside — they are numerous.
Get the trolleys working again.
Is that the final design shown at the top? Please tell me that’s not the final design. That’s the worst double-whammy of dangerous infrastructure design – bikes riding against traffic flow, and hidden behind parked cars. Such designs are known to have problems, hence why Copenhagen doesn’t even install 2-way cycle tracks anymore.
And parking? Does there really need to be parking on Riverside Drive?
I’m all for well-designed bike infrastructure, but it has to be SAFE! This design merely imparts the illusion of safety.
Why do people comment without having read the SCM posting?
Now with 4 lanes of car traffic this will not help access to the bike path on the Harahan railroad “Bridge to Nowhere” project that is funded by millions of dollars of taxpayer money.
Yet another colossal waste and mistake for the riverfront. So typical of the many backwards, half-assed projects that litter this small town city.
Removal of bike lanes screws cars not bikes.
Memphis has made monumental strides to offer safe, separated bicycling infrastructure that is comfortable to inexperienced cyclists while allowing for the free flow of cars in separate lanes. This has been an engineering victory for all parties.
However, if our community chooses to revert to making transportation decisions based solely on shared street infrastructure capable of carrying motorized vehicles in addition to bicycles (which it appears to be doing in the case of Riverside Drive), drivers of motorized vehicles need to understand the law associated with this shared space.
From the Tennessee Department of Transportation:
In Tennessee, a bicycle has the legal status of a vehicle. This means that bicyclists have full rights and responsibilities on the roadway and are subject to the regulations governing the operation of a motor vehicle. Tennessee traffic laws require bicyclists to:
-Ride on the right-hand side of the road with the same direction as traffic
-Obey all traffic signs and signals
-Use hand signals to communicate intended movements
-Equip their bicycles with a front white light visible from 500 feet and either a red reflector or a lamp emitting a red light which shall be visible from a distance of at least five hundred feet (500′) to the rear
There is no mention of minimum speed in the law (full law found here: http://www.tdot.state.tn.us/bikeped/bikelaws.htm).
I hope the angry motorists so interested in getting up and down Riverside Drive 18 seconds quicker don’t mind being stuck behind bikes travelling in the same lane as your cars.
Please just leave this alone – use the money to make the riverfront a continuous park with wide bike/walk lanes in the grass that go down as far as possible and connect to the Arkansas side! Or use it for more bike paths to connect with the existing lanes (which have been great). It’s just silly to spend a large amount on bike lanes when they are in the park.
I think you all can have your bike lanes and red lights (that will only make traffic at Riverside and I-55 much, much worse)… To avoid the tourists, slow movers who have no where to be in the morning at 7:55am and those who like to make turns out in front of moving cars from the gas station on Riverside Drive – I’ll just take Crump to work. Maybe I can actually get there on time too, and without so much aggravation. It was irritating when it was four lanes, now it’s just plain frustrating just like this whole discussion.
No matter what they decide to do, it won’t change the fact that MATA is not effective (I live 15 minutes from downtown in a car or 1.5 hours on a bus) or that 80% of workers in the county drive a car to/from work daily. It won’t change how you drive or the fact that most people using Riverside in the morning or evening are just trying to get to work – not take in the sights.
But whatever happens, I’m on Crump, 3rd and Danny Thomas. Y’all can have Riverside Drive.
Chad: Thanks for the comment, but if your opinion is determined by cost, we just wanted to make sure you know there’s no additional cost in changing to the alternatives for Riverside Drive.