The City of Memphis Division of Engineering has plans to repave ten city roads, including Riverside Drive, once again adding bike lanes.
City officials and Bike/Ped Memphis invited the public to the central library yesterday, March 27, to give feedback on the proposals in order to determine how they will proceed with each of the ten projects below.
Riverside Dr. – Jefferson Ave. to Beale St.
Cooper St. – Washington Ave. to Central Ave
N. Highland St. – Summer Ave. to Walnut Grove Rd.
N. Perkins St. – Summer Ave. to Walnut Grove
Hickory Hill Rd. – Mt. Moriah Rd. to Winchester Rd.
Knight Arnold Rd. – Hickory Hill Rd. to Ridgeway Rd.
Riverdale Rd. – Winchester Rd. to Shelby Dr.
Getwell Rd. – Park Ave. to I-240
Airways Blvd. – Shelby Dr. to TN/MS State Line
Mendenhall Rd.– Knight Arnold Rd. to Mt. Moriah Rd.
Nicholas Oyler, Bikeway and Pedestrian Program Manager for the City of Memphis believes that the new design for Riverside Drive is much improved from the pilot proposal (2014-2015), and expects to receive the most feedback on this road as well as Cooper Street.
“We expect people to be much happier because after hearing many valid complaints, we considered them when conceiving the new design,” Oyler said.
According to city officials, the new design for Riverside Drive mitigates most of the concerns from the pilot construction, by providing a turning lane near the Tom Lee Park entrance and additional room on the sides of the road for vehicles to pull over in case of emergency.
The key improvement of the design though is placing the median in the middle of the road with a bike lane, car lane, and pedestrian lane on each side instead of having the bike lanes pushed to one side of the road and the cars to the other.
Overall, the priority of the projects is the safety of everyone who uses the street, whether by foot, bike, or car.
For those who were unable to make it to the meeting yesterday, a survey for each project will be available online for the next 21 days.
Given that the proposals receive positive feedback, construction will begin as early as fall of this year.
