Tag: Bicycling

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News The Fly-By

New Bike Map Shows City’s Growing Bike System

Need to get from East Memphis to downtown by bike?

Hit the Shelby Farms Greenline. North on Tillman to the Hampline. Through Overton Park. North on McLean to the V&E Greenline. Then, west on North Parkway all the way to Mud Island.

Sound confusing? Not to hardcore Memphis cyclists. They’ve navigated the city’s system of bike trails and lanes as its grown over the past few years. But a new tool will unlock the cycling scene here for anyone looking to get on two wheels.

Convention and Visitors Bureau map shows all the bike lanes and trails across the city

The Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) has published the Memphis and Shelby County Bike Map. It’s the city’s first-ever printed map of the city’s bike trails, lanes, shared roadways, bike shops, and suggested bike routes.

“We made the map to support the current infrastructure, and we’re anticipating the worldwide attention we’re going to get when the Harahan Bridge project is ready for cyclists to cross the river,” said Regena Bearden, the CVB’s vice president of marketing and public relations.

Big River Crossing, a new walking and biking path across the Mississippi River via the Harahan Bridge, is slated to open next summer. Local officials believe it will make Memphis a cycling destination, especially with its promised connectivity to a system of levee trails stretching to New Orleans.

Just a few years ago, becoming a cycling destination seemed unlikely for Memphis, especially as Bicycling magazine called it one of the worst cities for biking in 2008. But the city has since done a U-turn. Memphis has added 108 miles of bike lanes since 2010 for a total of 198 total miles of bike lanes, shared paths, shared lanes, and more. This earned the city Bicycling magazine’s “Most Improved City Award” in 2012.

But some things about the Memphis system become clear when you look at the new bike map. Memphis bike lanes aren’t very well connected. Many begin and end at seemingly random places. They don’t seem designed to deliver bike riders to anywhere specific.

That’s because bike lanes are only created when a street is paved, said Kyle Wagenschutz, the city’s bicycle and pedestrian coordinator. But better connectivity is on the way, he said.

Thanks to federal transportation grants (with a 20 percent local match), more than 130 new miles of bike facilities are set to be created here by 2016, nearly doubling the amount of current bike lanes.

“The grant-funded projects were specifically chosen as a way to bridge the gap for a lot of those bike lanes,” Wagenschutz said.

The emphasis on bicycles in Memphis comes as the city embraces its outdoorsy side.

“I think there’s a transformation going on here when you look at bike lanes, hiking, the Harahan Bridge, Greenline, Shelby Farms, and Bass Pro, which is going to attract the outdoorsman, the hunter, the fisher, and the outdoor enthusiast,” said CVB President Kevin Kane. “We’re adding another dimension of the visitors we can attract here.”

The new bike map can be picked up at the CVB office and bike stores across Memphis. Find it online at memphistravel.com.

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News The Fly-By

Study Says Bicycling Boom Could Bring Gentrification

CREDIT: Bianca Phillips

Bicycling has changed Memphis but only for “some populations” while excluding others, and it has contributed to “racialized gentrification.”    

That’s the “sobering conclusion” of an academic article published last week in the journal Urban Studies. The report, called “Behind a bicycling boom: Governance, cultural change, and place character in Memphis, Tennessee” was authored by three academics: Kevin T. Smiley from Rice University; Wanda Rushing of the University of Memphis; and Michele Scott of North Carolina State University. 

The three reviewed 475 articles from The Commercial Appeal, the Memphis Daily News, and the Memphis Flyer using the search words “bicycling,” “greenline,” “greenway,” and “Harahan.” They also reviewed websites of bicycling projects, parks, blogs, and bicycling groups such as the Memphis Hightailers Bicycle Club. And they visited bike paths, restaurants, sidewalks, and streets.

The report said bicycling’s success here has come on the heels of massive investments made in bicycling infrastructure — the Shelby Farms Greenline, the miles of new bike lanes all over the city, and the in-progress Main Street to Main Street project that will link Memphis and West Memphis via bike and pedestrian lanes.

Bianca Phillips

Madison bike lane

But the study said those amenities are part of a new economic development push from a political culture that favors “citizen consumers” or members of the “creative class” without giving further definition. The new political culture also favors private developers or “growth machine elites” that have seen their bottom lines grow thanks to more bicycles on the roads. Politicians pushing bicycle amenities get political capital from the creative class and campaign contributions from developers, the study said. 

Still, Smiley, a co-author on the report, said bicycling amenities are not bad for Memphis. Instead, he said, the installations have “given people a lot of hope.”

“You can take that kind of spirit and make sure that kind of spirit is being applied across all kinds of different divisions of your city,” Smiley said. 

Smiley added that he knows bicycle lanes run through “black neighborhoods, white neighborhoods, all parts of the city.” But he said his research team is concerned that as more money is invested in bicycle infrastructure, “it’s not going to be as equal.”

“The crux of the misinformation in the article itself is that it makes an assumption about who is actually benefiting by increasing bicycle infrastructure,” said Kyle Wagenshutz, bicycle/pedestrian coordinator for the City of Memphis Division of Engineering. “It makes the case that only well-to-do, wealthy, white people are the ones benefiting from this infrastructure.”

Wagenshutz said bike lanes exist in all Memphis neighborhoods. He pointed to the South Memphis Greenline and to the planned $3 million Chelsea Avenue Greenline, which will link the New Chicago neighborhood to Second street.

Looking forward, the study said the Main Street to Main Street bicycle path project will deepen the “racialized gentrification” already present in the South Main neighborhood. The authors point to U.S. Census data that show a “sharp decrease in black population and a rise in socioeconomic status” in the neighborhood over the past decade. 

“It’s not just about the bridge itself. It’s about the pathways to that bridge and facilitating the kinds of protections that can be in place to benefit all of the populations around there,” Smiley said. “Because you don’t want this kind of racialized gentrification to come from the type of infrastructure, you also want to benefit all these different populations.”

 Wagenshutz said the article only refers to a small subset of U.S. Census data to justify their claims and that the data does “not accurately reflect the point they are trying to make.” He said much was left out of the article including the changes at the Memphis Area Transportation Authority, which will likely improve transportation across the city.  

“By dismissing all of that and dismissing the work that is happening in communities across the city, the study falls short, in my estimation, of painting an accurate picture of who is actually benefitting by the bicycling boom,” Wagenshutz said.

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Cross-country Biker Stops in Memphis

CREDIT: www.ride4c9.com

Laddie Williams is in the middle of a bike ride from Palm Springs, California to Charleston, South Carolina.

Williams is a firefighter in Augusta, Georgia, who embarked upon this journey to raise money for the families of the nine Charleston firefighters who died fighting a June 18, 2007 blaze at a furniture warehouse. No incident since 9-11 had claimed so many firefighters’ lives.

Williams, a support vehicle, and a bike mechanic, Scott Rousseau, planned to travel around 100 miles per day, and stay in firehouses each night. Yesterday, they made it from Little Rock to Memphis on Highway 70. The charity riders said they disliked the erratic quality of Arkansas roads, and felt relieved upon making it to Memphis.

Local firefighters took the bikers to Jim Neely’s Interstate Barbecue restaurant for some much-needed protein. The riders were impressed with the downtown Fire Museum of Memphis at 118 Adams.

To learn more about the charity ride, make a donation, or keep tabs of the riders via their blog, visit www.ride4c9.com.

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Getting Around

CREDIT: Berlinfoto | dreamstime.com

Rhodes College junior Anthony Siracusa says that traveling by bicycle sometimes takes longer than expected. But not for the reason you might think.

“It’s a social activity,” he says. “You run into people on the street, and they want to talk.”

Even so, Siracusa hopes to get more bicycles on the roads.

Siracusa represented the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC) at the Memphis City Council’s park committee meeting last week. Under a joint resolution, the council and the Shelby County Commission want to expand BPAC’s authority and designate it as a permanent standing committee of the area’s long-range transportation planning arm, the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). The MPO is expected to vote on the change during an August 30th meeting.

“This raises the political profile of BPAC,” Siracusa says of the proposal. “This was a committee organized for a specific purpose.”

BPAC was formed in 2003 to advise on a 25-year comprehensive transportation plan. Now, Siracusa hopes the group will be able to work more closely with the city engineer’s office to add bicycle facilities to area roads.

“One thing BPAC was adamant about from the very beginning was writing into MPO policy that every time a street is repaved, a bike lane is added,” he says.

In 2000, the U.S. Department of Transportation said that states receiving federal dollars needed to incorporate bicycle and pedestrian amenities into transportation pro-jects unless “exceptional circumstances exist.” However, only half of all states have complied, according to the national Complete Streets Coalition.

“Here’s the problem,” says local bike and pedestrian advocate Steven Sondheim. “The federal regulations say when you improve a street or make a new street, they recommend putting in bike and pedestrian facilities, unless there is some compelling reason not to. It’s a recommendation. It’s not a law.”

Though Memphis has designated bicycle routes throughout the city, riding on those roads can still be dangerous. (Insert your own joke about Memphis drivers here.)

“In the three years [since the plan was created], nothing has happened,” Sondheim says. “There is not one bike lane in the city of Memphis. There are some in Germantown and Bartlett.”

Though the MPO plan includes recommendations for bicycle lanes, the group has no authority to implement its plans. Humphreys Boulevard is the only current road project that includes bike lanes.

Perhaps Memphis is behind the curve. Across the country, cities are adding bicycle lanes as part of “complete streets” programs. The idea, utilized in Chicago, Charlotte, and Iowa City, is that public streets should accommodate a variety of transportation, including areas for motor vehicles, bicycles, mass transit, and pedestrians.

Some planners have argued that adding extra vehicle lanes has not reduced traffic congestion; it has just invited more drivers onto the road. Supporters of complete streets initiatives say biking and walking reduce congestion and help fight obesity-related diseases.

The American Association of Retired People and various disability groups are also fans of the program. The environmental argument is a no-brainer, especially with higher gas prices and global warming.

“I see a direct link between creating bicycle facilities and reclaiming streets for a healthier way of life,” Siracusa says. “Bicycle facilities typically reflect people-friendly cities. It’s a mark of livable communities where people like being outside. … Not to mention, bikes are fun.”

The history major would like to see a pilot program add bike lanes to a target neighborhood, preferably in Cooper-Young.

“People are already riding bikes there,” he says. “The least we can do is make them safer.”

But if Memphians want bicycle lanes, they are going to have to lobby for them.

“I wish we lived in a place like Chicago where the mayor got on a bicycle and led the way,” Siracusa says. “At the same time, Memphians have to decide: Do we want to see increased bicycle and pedestrian access in our city?”

Sondheim says a group of cyclists will be starting to identify specific roads for bike lanes as early as this fall.

“What we want is [more lanes] in the next year or two,” he says. “We can’t wait until 2030. That’s part of the problem with long-range plans.”

Sometimes, they just leave you spinning your wheels.