TRAFFIC

South Memphis targeted for bicycle, pedestrian improvements

Tom Charlier

USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee

February 24, 2017 - Roshun Austin, executive director of The Works Inc., holds a sign of what the future median along South Parkway will look like while standing in the current median. Beginning this spring a $250,000 construction project funded by a grant from the Hyde Family Foundations will extend the South Parkway median from its present terminus near Gaither Street to about a mile westward, at Lauderdale. "It's a buffer, it will calm the traffic," Austin said. "But it's also about beautification and to feel safer as a pedestrian."

South Parkway isn't much of a parkway adjacent to the church where Roshun Austin works.

The broad, grassy and tree-studded median found in other areas of the parkway system in Memphis is absent beginning at a sharp curve near St. Andrew AME Church, where Austin is chief operating officer, and extending westward all the way to the end of South Parkway near Interstate 55. That means pedestrians must cross five lanes of often fast-moving, truck-laden traffic in front of the church.

Beginning this spring, however, a $250,000 construction project funded by a grant from the Hyde Family Foundations will extend the South Parkway median from its present terminus near Gaither Street to about a mile westward, at Lauderdale. The work should take two months to complete.

Although modest in scope, the project is among several improvements that are planned to improve pedestrian and bicycle access across South Memphis, a historic community that city officials and neighborhood leaders say is under-served when it comes to such amenities. Other improvements that are planned range from the addition of protected and shared bike lanes on several streets to the construction of a bicycle-pedestrian trail similar to the Shelby Farms Greenline along an abandoned railroad bed.

Memphis chosen for program to boost bicycle traffic

June 19, 2016 - Perry Sponseller (left) peddles his daughter, Gavyn, 6, and their dog George around the parking lot of the First Congregational Church at the start of the Ride with Dad Father's Day bike ride. Revolutions Bicycle Coop organized the three mile ride around the Cooper Young neighborhood that ended at the Memphis Made brewery.

Serving some 25,000 residents living south of Downtown, between Interstate 240 on the east, the Mississippi River on the west and Mallory Avenue on the south, the projects are anything but frivolous. Across 11 census tracts in the area, an estimated 2,294, or 27 percent, of the total of 8,594 households have no vehicle available, limiting residents' options for employment, shopping and entertainment.

"We're connecting people to the places and things that make their quality of life better," said Austin, who also is executive director of The Works, Inc., a community development corporation serving South Memphis.

The effort received a major boost last month when Memphis was one of 10 cities selected to benefit from the Big Jump Project, a new initiative from the national advocacy group PeopleForBikes aimed at boosting bike ridership by two- or three-fold in specific neighborhoods. Each of the cities will get the equivalent of $200,000 annually in technical support over a three-year period, plus $50,000 in matching funds from local organizations.

Memphis benefits from bicycling, hiking renaissance

Memphis plans to focus its funds and efforts on improving the bicycle infrastructure in South Memphis, said Nicholas Oyler, bikeway and pedestrian manager for the city. Although some bike lanes already are in place in the area, including on such major streets as Crump Boulevard, new ones will be added beginning this summer on Florida Street, Mallory Avenue and Dr. M.L. King Jr. Avenue.

In addition, pedestrian-friendly curb extensions will be added at intersections on Mississippi Boulevard to slow traffic and make it easier to cross the street on foot. The city and Memphis Area Transit Authority also will use $150,000 in grant funds awarded last week to install bike racks along transit routes in South Memphis and elsewhere.

Willie McCaplin uses a bike lane along North Cleveland Street in March, 2016.

One of the more ambitious, and long-term, projects planned by the city is the construction of a 2.5-mile greenline, or multi-use path, on an old rail right-of-way that runs southwest from Trigg, across South Parkway near Coletta's and all the way to Mallory. The city will be hiring a consultant in the coming weeks, and construction on the nearly $2.3 million first phase, from Trigg to Person, should begin in about two years.

South Memphis is among the areas "that need more investment and community revitalization," Oyler said. Bicycle lanes and related projects can bring a number of economic and social benefits — providing for easier transportation to jobs and schools, promoting healthy exercise, improving traffic safety through reduced vehicle speeds and even cutting crime because more people are active outdoors in the neighborhoods.

Gaining Ground to cycle on the streets of Memphis

Bicycling also can help connect South Memphis to other parts of the city, Oyler said. Interstates 240 and 55 and other major roads somewhat isolate the community from Martin Luther King Jr. Riverside Park, Downtown and other locations.

"There's no reason why people in South Main shouldn't go to South Memphis, and vise-versa," he said.

Still, there are obstacles, many of them intangible, to promoting greater bicycle use in South Memphis.

New sections of Wolf River Greenway under construction

"I would've been one of those people skeptical of bike lanes ... up until two years ago," said Austin, who had never been cycling until she traveled to bicycle-friendly Amsterdam, Netherlands, a couple of years ago.

But Oyler is confident things can change.

"If a city does all the right things to make biking easy, convenient and safe, more people will ride," he said.

Reach reporter Tom Charlier at thomas.charlier@commercialappeal.com.