Categories
News News Blog

Kyle Wagenschutz Takes New Job at PeopleForBikes

Memphis bike/pedestrian coordinator Kyle Wagenschutz has announced his resignation. He’ll be taking on a new role as Director of Local Innovation at PeopleForBikes, a national bicycling advocacy organization, in Boulder, Colorado.

Wagenschutz, the city’s first bike/pedestrian coordinator, was hired for the role in 2010 by former Mayor A C Wharton. In that role, Wagenschutz oversaw the implementation of 60-plus miles of bike lanes across the city and helped move the city from one of Bicycling Magazine’s worst cities for bicycling in 2008 to one of the most improved cycling cities in 2012.

At PeopleForBikes, Wagenschutz will handle the day-to-day administration of the Green Lane Project, which accelerates implementation of protected bike lanes and low-stress cycling networks.

Wagenschutz has said he’ll continue to work with the city in an advisory role, as the city moves forward with implementing a bike-share program and prepares to host the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals Conference in 2017. 

“Rest assured, the administration and engineering staff are still fully committed to making walking and bicycling a priority in Memphis and plan to continue the aggressive development of infrastructure and programs that were started under my stewardship,” Wagenschutz said in a prepared statement. “The process to hire a replacement has already begun and I anticipate the city will be filling the position as quickly as they can.”

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland posted an announcement about Wagenschutz’s departure on March 18th.

“Obviously, we’re sad to see him go. Under Kyle’s watch, we have greatly expanded bicycling infrastructure in Memphis and continue to make our city more pedestrian-friendly. I reaffirm our commitment to these initiatives, and I’m happy to report that we’ve already initiated the process to find Kyle’s successor. Please join me in wishing Kyle the very best,” Strickland wrote.

Categories
News News Blog

New “Bike Nerds” Podcast Focuses on Cycling in Memphis

A couple of Memphis’ best-known cyclists have launched a new podcast on the OAM Network.

Kyle Wagenschutz, bicycle/pedestrian program manager for the City of Memphis, and Sara Studdard, project manager of Explore Bike Share, are the co-hosts of “Bike Nerds,” a podcast about cycling culture and livability.

The first episode is available now on the OAM Network website. In it, Wagenschutz and Studdard discuss their own cycling histories and the work they’re engaged in. 

Future episodes will feature interviews with people they’ve dubbed as “bike change leaders” from across the country, such as Memphis’ own Anthony Siracusa of Bike Walk TN and Olatunji Oboi Reed, co-founder of Slow Roll Chicago, which organizes bike rides to reduce crime.

The hosts say they plan to address a variety of bike-related topics on the show, including bike equity and inclusivity, tipping points for emerging bike cultures, and future potential challenges for the cycling community.

Last year, the League of American Bicyclists awarded Memphis with a bronze-Level Bicycle Friendly Community award, and in 2012, Bicycling Magazine named Memphis “Most Improved City for Cycling” (after naming it among the worst cities for cycling in 2008 and 2010).

Under Wagenschutz’s leadership, the city has more than doubled its miles of bike infrastructure since 2010. According to the 2014 city “State of Bicycling” report, that number could double again by the end of 2016.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Transportation Forum Finds Citizens Want More Pedestrian-Friendly City

Crumbling sidewalks, underfunded public transit, and disconnected bike lanes were at the top of the list for Memphians who attended a public forum at the Benjamin L. Hooks Library last week to discuss the transportation needs of the city.

“We need to keep the role of the government in mind,” said Dennis Lynch, the transportation chair for the Tennessee chapter of the Sierra Club, which hosted the discussion. “If the things we’re doing aren’t for the people, they aren’t the right things. We need to push for the things we think we need.”

Attendees brainstormed various ideas to alleviate what many believe is a situation in dire need of a solution. Among the proposals: buses that run on time and to more locations on a frequent schedule; sidewalks and streets that are safe for all citizens; more availability to rent tandem bicycles; for Congressman Steve Cohen to support the local allocation of federal funds and allow more local power over how those funds are spent; and to install more parking meters to encourage people to use public transit as a way to save money.

Lynch said the input would be taken to Mayor Jim Strickland, the Memphis City Council, the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA), and the Metropolitan Planning Organization.

Broken, uneven sidewalks and missing curb ramps leave those like Steve Collins, who is disabled and relies on his wheelchair and public transportation, at a disadvantage.

Collins’ route is contained to Poplar, where he’s pinpointed at least 19 “problem spots.” At Poplar and White Station, Collins said there are four corners and only two curb cuts, which forces him to travel into the street.

The issue of damaged sidewalks is not so black and white. In Memphis, property owners are responsible for sidewalk repair. A 1967 city law states that owners of properties abutting any public street are “required to provide and maintain adjacent to his or her property a sidewalk.” The city has made efforts to assist low-income residents, but the problem is still open-ended for Memphians like Collins.

“We have met with the city about this, and they tell us that it is the state’s problem because [Poplar] is a state highway,” Collins said. “The state says it is a city problem because it is Poplar Avenue. My question is this: If I die at that intersection, where does my widow send the bill for the funeral?”

Kyle Wagenschutz, bicycle and pedestrian program manager for the city of Memphis, said obstacles within funding resources, or the lack thereof, can leave “some things waiting in the wings.” Bike lanes, for instance, are routinely added as streets are repaved. However, the city will soon begin construction on a grant-funded project to update more roads with bike lanes.

“These are all roads that are not being repaved but that new bike lanes are going to be installed without repaving,” Wagenschutz said. “All of those were chosen based on the idea of connecting the missing pieces and missing segments of the network.”

Developing dedicated sources to fund MATA is key, said Suzanne Carlson, Innovate Memphis’ transportation and mobility project manager.

“There’s a lack of funding to go around,” Carlson said. “Right now, [MATA] goes to city council and [receives] federal funds. Some are guaranteed, and some are competitive that they might not get every year.”

Though they have continually received budget cuts over the last few years, MATA President Ron Garrison said they are “in the process of rebuilding MATA.” After the 2010 census numbers were released, MATA lost upwards of $1.6 million dollars in federal funding as well as some state funding. But this fiscal year, they have a “tiny bit of money” left over, Garrison said. Additionally, Garrison said MATA is implementing new ideas such as partnering with Uber and TransLoc.

“Over the next two years, you’re going to see tremendous improvements,” Garrison said. “Over the next five years, we can make MATA a great transit system again. We’re fixing on-time performance, changing the culture, and correctly funding our facilities, buses, and transit stops so that our customers have a very positive experience.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

Cleveland St. Gets Bike Lanes, Left Turning Lane

Not every city bicycle lane project is welcomed by motorists, but the bike lanes going in on Cleveland this month have led to an unexpected bonus for drivers.

The long-anticipated repaving project has reconfigured the Midtown street to include buffered bike lanes, but it’s also made room for left vehicular turning lanes at stoplights at the street’s major intersections.

For years, drivers wanting to turn left from Cleveland onto Poplar, Jefferson, Madison, or Union had to do so in a parking lot or side street since left turns at those intersections were not allowed. But since the city is adding bicycle lanes up and down Cleveland, they’ve also been able to create a left turning lane.

National Association of City Transportation Officials

Portland, Oregon, will be painted at the intersection of Cleveland and Peabody.

“One of the added benefits of the redesign is the fact that there is now a left turning lane continuously along Cleveland,” said Kyle Wagenschutz, the city’s bicycle and pedestrian program manager. “When I was driving down Cleveland [one day last week], there were no fewer than eight cars waiting to turn left on Union. That wouldn’t have been possible a few weeks ago.”

The bike lanes going in on Cleveland — from Overton Park Avenue to Lamar — are still a work in progress, but when the repaving and striping project wraps up in a few weeks, those lanes will be completely protected from traffic along most of the street.

A buffer lane with white metal poles will separate car traffic from bicycle traffic, a configuration that hasn’t been possible with many of the city’s bicycle lane projects.

“The buffer zone will continue at least to Peabody. There’s a little section of Cleveland where the traffic circles are, and there was no room for a bike lane there,” Wagenschutz said. “On those couple of blocks, you have to share the road. But the buffers will resume at Harbert down to Lamar.”

The city will also be getting its first “bike box” on Cleveland at the Peabody intersection. A bike box is a large painted box on the street that allows cyclists to position themselves in front of cars lined up at a traffic light. Cars have to stop outside the bike box — about 10 feet back from where they normally would stop at an intersection — and let cyclists go first.

“It allows us to bring the bikes all the way to the intersection, and then the bicycles will cue up in front of the cars before proceeding through the intersection,” Wagenschutz said. “It will be the first bike box in Memphis and only the second in Tennessee. Nashville put one in earlier this year.”

For now, the bicycle lanes will only extend as far north as Overton Park Avenue, but Wagenschutz said, once Crosstown Concourse construction is done, they’ll add lanes (most of which will be buffered) all the way down North Watkins to Frayser.

“There was a conscious decision to stop the repaving at Overton Park Avenue so we wouldn’t have a lot of heavy trucks rolling over it headed to the Crosstown site,” Wagenschutz said.

Todd Richardson, co-leader of Crosstown Concourse development, said they’re thrilled to have bike lanes leading to the redeveloped Crosstown site.

“Ever since we started Crosstown Arts in 2010, we’ve known that we’re not just renovating a building; we’re building community. Having a neighborhood where people feel safe biking is critical to that broader mission,” Richardson said.

Richardson points to plans that will make Crosstown Concourse as bike-friendly as possible.

“Current development plans also include extending the V&E Greenline across North Parkway onto the Concourse site, as well as providing secure bike storage, changing rooms, and repair stations inside the building,” he said.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Bicycle Crossing Light Planned for Hampline

Earlier this month, a bicyclist was killed after being hit by a vehicle just a block west of Sam Cooper and Tillman, the same intersection that, in about a year, will boast the city’s first bicycle-only traffic light.

The special traffic signal for cyclists is part of the planned Hampline bicycle path stretching from Overton Park to the Shelby Farms Greenline.

Zachary Walls, 40, was hit and killed by a vehicle driven by 50-year-old Solomon Johnson. Johnson stayed on the scene but was arrested for driving on a suspended, revoked, or canceled license. The scene of the accident was closer to Lipford, about a block from the traffic light at Tillman, so it’s hard to know whether the completed Hampline and its planned bike traffic signal could have made his route safer.

But Livable Memphis Program Director John Paul Shaffer believes the planned bike path will improve bicycle and pedestrian safety overall.

Artist rendering of the Hampline along Tillman

“Sam Cooper right now screams ‘You’re not safe no matter what happens,'” Shaffer said. “Getting across Sam Cooper is terrifying sometimes.”

Once complete, cyclists will approach the Sam Cooper and Tillman traffic signal, and a sensor in the street will detect the bike. An extra traffic signal with red, yellow, and green lights projected through a cutout of a bicycle will tell cyclists when it’s safe to cross.

Part of the Hampline is already constructed. It begins at Overton Park and crosses East Parkway onto an existing sidewalk along Sam Cooper that leads to Broad Avenue. From there, the path travels down Broad’s existing bicycle lanes.

In the past few months, city crews have erected flexible bollards along Broad between Hollywood and Collins to separate the lane from the parking area. Before those were installed, drivers would often park cars partially inside the bike lane. City Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator Kyle Wagenschutz said crews are still putting the finishing touches on that stretch of the Hampline project.

“They’re about 85 percent done. They can only operate on days when it’s warm enough to put the paint down,” Wagenschutz said.

But for now, the Hampline ends at Collins. That’s because that first stretch of the Hampline was paid for through city funds, but the rest of the project — the lane from Collins to Tillman, the bicycle traffic signal at Sam Cooper and Tillman, and the north-south stretch of lane from Tillman to the Greenline — will be funded using federal money.

The designs must be approved by the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the federal government before that part of the project can move forward.

“If the design approval process goes smoothly, we’ll be able to bid the construction for those [final] phases sometime in 2015, but whether or not the physical construction begins before next winter, I don’t know at this point,” Wagenschutz said.

From Collins west to Tillman and from Tillman south to the Greenline, the lane will be buffered from traffic with a concrete median, some of which will be planted.

“I think there’s even a rain garden in one spot. It just depends on how wide they are as to whether or not the curbs have plantings,” said Shaffer, whose organization raised $72,000 for the Hampline’s design through the crowd-funding website, ioby.org.

Despite the recent bicycle fatality near the Hampline’s path, Wagenschutz said bicycle accidents have actually decreased since 2008. Most years, the city only has one or two accidents. So far this year, there have been two, both within the past month. The city doubled the miles of bicycle infrastructure by 2010, and that number is projected to double again by 2016.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Expanding Greenline To Midtown Will Involve Building Bridge

There’s a plan to extend the Shelby Farms Greenline to Midtown, but there’s a big hurdle — make that two big hurdles — in the way.

Two active rail lines are blocking the planned path of the greenline extending west from Tillman to its eventual end at Tobey Park.

“It’s the same rail line that runs adjacent to Wiseacre [Brewing Company on Broad]. The trail alignment runs in a diagonal to the existing rail lines there,” said the city’s bike and pedestrian coordinator Kyle Wagenschutz.

The solution is to build a bridge over the live rail lines, and the city has received a federal transportation grant for the initial design work. That money will fund an analysis of potential environmental hazards of building a bridge, any drainage issues, and how it will fit underneath the Poplar viaduct and over the railroad.

“At this point, there have been no funds committed for actual construction. We know it will be expensive, several million dollars,” Wagenschutz said. “We’re hoping the next time the federal funding cycle comes around, we’ll be able to request funds. But we have a couple of years.”

He said the city will likely begin the process of selecting a design firm for the bridge in the spring or summer. Right-of-way for the quarter-mile from Tillman to Tobey Park was included in the existing greenline’s right-of-way purchase from CSX Railroad. The current seven-mile greenline is built along an abandoned CSX rail corridor.

In March, construction is expected to begin on the greenline’s eastward expansion. Earlier this month, the Shelby County Public Works Division negotiated a contract with CSX Railroad to purchase the deserted right-of-way from Farm Road to the old Cordova train station on B Street.

“Residents in Cordova have been asking for a better connection to the park for quite some time,” Wagenschutz said. “I think this will be a great addition, particularly in helping to connect a large population of users to the park without them having to drive their cars over.”

Federal grants will cover 75 percent of the cost. Shelby County government allocated $650,000, and the remaining $550,000 was donated by the Shelby Farms Park Conservancy. 

There were a couple of smaller hurdles in the path of the 4.1-mile eastward expansion. In one area, an older trussle bridge must be replaced, and other areas will require improved pedestrian crossings.

“The biggest issue is safe crossing of Germantown Parkway,” said Laura Morris, executive director of the Shelby Farms Park Conservancy. “That was resolved by a design that the city and county engineers came up with to add back the red light at the railroad track [between Macon and Fisher Steel] that was once there when it was a live rail crossing. It will be timed with the two traffic lights close by at Macon and Fisher Steel so it doesn’t have any effect on the traffic.”

Pedestrians will cross the greenline at Germantown Parkway at two signals. First, they’ll cross onto a protected median in the middle of the parkway. They’ll have to push a signal button at the median and wait to cross the other half.

Eventually, the plan is for the greenline to extend east to Oakland, but some of the land along the former rail line to the east belongs to individual landowners.

“The next piece of [the greenline’s expansion] that will take you to the Fayette County line is going to involve patching back together the landowners’ portions of the right-of-way,” Morris said. “But we have had indications from many of the landowners that they would be willing to work with the county.”

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Bicycle Politics

Antonio Gramsci, imprisoned by the Italian government in 1926 for his intellectual work, watched from his jail cell as fascism slowly consumed Europe. Disgusted with those ignoring the spread of totalitarianism, Gramsci wrote in his prison diary: “Indifference is the dead weight of history … nothing of what happens … is a matter of luck, nor the product of fate, but the intelligent work of the citizens.”

If you’re interested in the story of citizens working to make Memphis a better bike city, you’ll be disappointed by the recent article “Behind a Bicycling Boom: Governance, Cultural Change and Place Character in Memphis, Tennessee.”

The authors claim Memphis’ recent bicycle boom has created only “superficial changes to the city’s image” and effected no real change in “divisions along city and suburban lines, profound racial residential segregation, and stagnant population growth.”

Why? Because bicycle advocates in Memphis are an elite white “consumer citizen” class who, in partnership with Memphis Mayor A C Wharton’s government and local developers, crafted an “amenity-based urbanism” that reinforces their power.

Titillating though it is, the authors have a neat theory in search of a problem.

Their first mistake is portraying people on bikes as spandex-clad, helmet-wearing elites with no interest in truly connecting with people unlike them. Their second mistake is painting a portrait of bicycle advocates as an elite white class espousing connected communities while actually marginalizing poor non-white people.

The most recent U.S. Census reports the bicycle community roughly mirrors the demographics of the city at large: 53 percent of people on bicycles in Memphis are black, 37 percent are white, 4 percent are Asian, and 6 percent are listed as “other.”

What’s more, Memphis’ bicycle culture has shifted in the past five years from one dominated by spandex warriors to a culture filled with a growing group of daily commuters. If anything, the people being marginalized are “the bike guys” with helmets and spandex.

But more troubling is the authors’ assessment of bike advocates who, they claim, occupy a “class status higher than that of many of their fellow city residents.” Why? Because bike advocates possess “the command of capital” to support businesses that support bike lanes — turning bike advocates buying sandwiches at Fino’s into Andrew Carnegie-like capitalist magnates.

But the more damning implication of this argument is that less well off “fellow city residents” are too broke to do anything to revitalize their neighborhoods. Just as the authors rely on a false image of bike riders as spandex titans and bike advocates as white elites, they also rely on the condescending image of a poor and helpless citizenry.

Finally, the article is patently wrong about the South Main neighborhood. The authors claim the neighborhood is suffering from “racialized gentrification” because the black population around South Main fell from 43 percent in 2000 to 14 percent in 2012. (It’s worth noting the population of Hispanics and Asians in South Main doubled in the same period).

Despite the fact that artists drove South Main’s revitalization decades before Memphis had a bike lane, the authors attribute these demographic shifts to the failed “politics of bicycling.” These “bicycle politics” are even more despicable because they emptied out a black neighborhood less than a mile from the Lorraine Motel — connecting the failed politics of bicycling to the assassination of Dr. King.

I concede that bicycles haven’t bridged the urban/suburban divide or healed wounds of the King assassination. But they haven’t made them worse.

The city’s recent improvements for bikes have made Memphis a better place, and the authors might have understood this had they talked to Big Mike — the Ice Man — about his bike business. Or asked Sylvia Crum about the “kidical mass.” They could have talked to James Williams about his work to repair bikes for his neighbors near LeMoyne-Owen College. Or they could have talked to Megan at the YMCA about the Multicultural Achievers’ regular rides on the Greenline.

But they apparently didn’t talk to anyone in Memphis.

So what’s left? At best we have a cautionary tale about the need of “professional” thinkers to shoehorn a complex city full of people into a neat academic theory.

Anthony Siracusa is a graduate fellow in history at Vanderbilt University. He also serves as president of Bike Walk Tennessee.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Study Says Bicycling Boom Could Bring Gentrification

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.

Categories
News The Fly-By

MPO Plans Update of Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan

In 2011, the Memphis Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) developed a massive Regional Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan that set out to address the need for more bike lanes and walking paths. At the time, the plan identified “not enough on-street facilities” as the biggest limitation to cycling in Memphis.

Fast forward to 2014: The city now has more than 300 miles of bike lanes, as well as shared-use paths and greenways. And that 2011 plan seems a little outdated.

But the MPO just wrapped up a month of 14 public meetings across the metro area from Millington to Horn Lake to gather input for an update to the bicylcle and pedestrian plan.

The plan is designed to “help establish a framework” for communities in improving bicycle lanes and paths and pedestrian walkways, not dictate what they have to do, said Kyle Wagenschutz, the city’s bike-pedestrian coordinator. The plan takes into account safety, comfort, and accessibility with the goal of providing a more walkable and bicycle-friendly city, he said.

“I think people are genuinely interested and enthused about the progress being made,” Wagenschutz said. “The purpose of these meetings is to help us tailor how those priorities should be assessed. We’re using these as an opportunity to gather feedback from community members about their perceptions of bicycling and walking.”

Wagenschutz says the components of the plan’s recommendations, what he calls the five Es — engineering, education, enforcement, encouragement, and evaluation — can help create a “cultural infrastructure,” but funding is the bigger issue.

“It’s tough from our perspective,” he said. “We can recommend programs [like driver education for sharing the road]. We realize they are important to improving conditions for bicycling and walking, but the MPO, through federal transportation funding, can’t actually fund those programs. The only things we can fund are the infrastructure that gets built. Some communities did the things we recommended that, at a local level, probably improved conditions.”

Attendance at the meetings was down compared to that of the last set of meetings when the previous Regional Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan was being developed in 2011. But Wagenschutz said that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“Sometimes the input you get from a larger meeting isn’t always imminently helpful because you can’t get down to the nuances that really exist,” Wagenschutz said. “The smaller settings allow you to do activities and input sessions that are a little more detail-oriented.”

At the last public input meeting at the Cordova Branch Library last week, community members gave their input through interactive stations lined against the wall. One such interactive station asked attendees to take 10 pennies — symbolizing the budget for bike/pedestrian projects — and redistribute those pennies into different projects like maintaining roadways or creating new bike lanes.

Another asked for the attendees to imagine themselves in the locations pictured, for cycling and walking, and place a sticker describing if they feel positively or negatively about the experience.

“When I pay my taxes lately, I think of you,” one attendee said to Wagenschutz after the presentation. “Really. The bicycle trails are the only benefit I get personally each year.”

Wagenschutz wasn’t able to mention any specifics from the public comments they’ve received so far, but he said they’ll be releasing data from the meeting in mid-September.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Car-Free in Memphis!

In a city like Memphis, with its busy interstates, urban sprawl, and somewhat sketchy public transit, going without a car for 30 days might sound a little crazy.

But that’s exactly what Kyle Wagenschutz, the bike/pedestrian coordinator for the City of Memphis, proposed with the city’s first “30-Day Car-Free Challenge.” During April, participants were to be as car-free as possible — using public transportation, rideshares, bicycles — anything besides driving their own cars alone. Occasional carpooling was allowed.

Justin Fox Burks

Kyle Wagenschutz

Eighteen participants, including the Flyer‘s Bianca Phillips and Alexandra Pusateri, were chosen as the challenge’s “model citizens.” They were asked to write about their experiences on the city’s Car-Free Challenge blog. The challenge was open to anyone, and a number of people signed up and tweeted about their experiences using the hashtag #carfreememphis.

“There’s this idea that it’s impossible to get around by a bicycle in the city or that you can’t use a bus because you’ll never get there,” Wagenschutz says. “We’ve heard a lot of negative stereotypes about how getting around Memphis without a car is not going to happen, that it’s not physically feasible.”

Through the challenge, Wagenschutz hoped to put those stereotypes to rest.

By 2016, the city plans to extend bike lanes by another 130 miles, Wagenschutz says. Since he began his job in 2010, the city has created 71 miles of lanes.

The city now stripes bike lanes as streets are repaved or resurfaced, but that method can create some bike lanes that end abruptly and leave others seemingly unfinished.

“From a network perspective, it can be challenging where you get small segments of new bike lanes or trails that don’t seem to be connected right now,” Wagenschutz says. “Even if you’re building the network a piece at a time, over time, the network will begin to come together.”

The Challenge didn’t come without, well, challenges for participating cyclists. Some reported debris in bike lanes. Another issue was the fact that many Memphis drivers seem unaware of how to share the road with cyclists.

Some Challenge participants who walked for their commutes complained about the state of some sidewalks around the city. But that’ not the city’s fault. Sidewalk maintenance is the responsibility of individual property owners. South Main, as an example, has been redeveloping for years without some sidewalks filled in or improved. Wagenschutz says the city is working with property owners all over Memphis to fix sidewalks.

“It’s not just a South Main problem. It’s a problem all over the city,” he says. “The complication is how the city addresses an issue that is closely linked to property ownership in a way that is fair and equitable.” As for debris, Wagenschutz says cyclists can call the city’s 311 Public Works hotline to report blocked bike lanes or debris.

While the month-long project wasn’t called a challenge for nothing, Wagenschutz believes the benefits of going car-free extend beyond helping the environment, being healthier, and saving money. It also can help change your outlook.

Justin Fox Burks

MATA’s Interim GM Tom Fox

“In a real way, getting out of your car has a great mental benefit of being in the city, experiencing the city at a different pace,” he says. “It really just provides a great sense of civic pride. One of the most independent things you can do is freeing yourself from driving around in your car every day.”

Tom Fox, interim general manager of MATA, agrees. Fox committed to completing 15 days of the Car-Free Challenge, traveling by bike, trolley, and of course, bus.

“I generally hear from people who have bad experiences on the bus, but I took 16 bus rides in the month, and for the most part, my buses were on time,” Fox says. “If they were late, they weren’t really late to the point where I got messed up on a connection.”

But Fox does recognize that MATA lacks service in certain areas of town, which can cause long-lasting trips and long wait times. He says MATA’s $55 million operating budget, which is subject to cuts from city, state, and federal governments, is too tight to expand service into areas with less residential and employment density.

“We have to concentrate our service on the areas where we get the most bang for our buck. We’re always cognizant of serving lower-income areas, where people don’t have alternatives,” Fox says. “With more money, we could serve the transit-dependent population and have a little bit more to track people who do have a choice in those outlying areas. Park ‘n’ Rides, express services — those are the things we could add if we had more money.”

MATA lacks a dedicated funding stream, meaning there is no money coming from a source dedicated to public transportation, such as a sales tax that would earmark money for MATA. A penny gas tax on the local ballot in 2012 would have provided such a dedicated stream for MATA, but it was voted down.

Cities with higher levels of bus service tend to have dedicated funding streams and more advanced trip-planning technology, such as smart phone apps designed to plan bus routes. MATA has the mobile MATA Traveler website, and Fox says a more user-friendly smart phone app is in the works.

One Flyer staffer who participated in the Challenge had a mostly positive MATA experience with one exception — the dirty bathrooms at MATA’s North End Terminal. Fox says he has “experienced the same thing … I’ve been unhappy with those bathrooms.” But change is coming, he says.

“We have some procurements in process to get some of the fixtures replaced in there, and we have manpower assigned to clean those bathrooms throughout the day,” Fox says.

Fox adds that he’s hopeful that the increased exposure from the Car-Free Challenge will convince more people to leave their cars at home and take a bus.

“The more that we can let people know that [public transit] is not just for low-income people and service is relatively convenient, the better,” he says. “And it’s certainly better for the environment.”

Of Blisters and Bicycles:Bianca’s Story

There I was, speed walking down the Main Street Mall in brand-new ballet flats, blisters already forming on my heels as I hustled to make it into the office for the 9:30 a.m. editorial meeting. It was day one of my 30-Day Car-Free Challenge, and I’d already screwed up.

My plan to take trolleys from Midtown to my downtown office started off okay as I boarded the Madison trolley at 8:45 a.m. But I’d failed to check the schedule for the Riverfront Loop, my planned transfer trolley. It doesn’t start running until 9:30 a.m. — when I was supposed to already have my butt in a chair at our meeting. So I hoofed it from Madison to the Flyer offices on Tennessee Street, despite my lack of proper footwear.

“Whew, this is gonna be a rough month,” I thought to myself.

That was one of a few hiccups throughout April, as I attempted to trade my car for buses, trolleys, and my bicycle for 30 days.

I say “attempted” because there were some days when I simply could not be car-free. My line of work often requires me to attend press conferences, public meetings, and interviews all over town, and when one needs to go from downtown to Germantown to Whitehaven in one day, only a car will do.

But my car-free days didn’t turn out to be as bad as I thought they’d be. My main transit of choice was my trusty mint-green Electra Ladies’ Cruiser. On nice days, I’d wake up an hour earlier than usual, strap on my helmet, and take the North Parkway bike lanes in Crosstown down to the Main Street Mall, then head south toward my office.

The morning rides were quiet and, for the most part, uneventful, except for one day when I took a detour on Manassas. I was biking on the far right side of the wide street when a man in a City of Memphis truck honked his horn and motioned for me to get on the sidewalk.

I didn’t budge, since state law gives bicyclists the right to be on the road. Mr. City Employee is supposed to know he has to share the road and give me three feet between his car and my bike.

But that moment was made up for later that day, when I rode home down the Main Street Mall in the beautiful 75-degree afternoon. People were lounging on patios, sipping cocktails. A tourist couple stopped me to ask directions to Beale Street. People nodded and waved, and my quick ride through the water fountains in front of City Hall made me feel like a kid again. You experience the world through different eyes while riding a bike.

I also rode my first city bus last month. My commute by bus takes about an hour, and I can drive to work in 15 minutes. But time aside, my bus experiences were overwhelmingly pleasant. My buses were always on time (or early), and the bus drivers were extremely patient with my newbie questions. Busing may not be a viable option for me to commute on a regular basis, but I can see myself using buses to travel to art walks, festivals, and bars when I know I’ll be having a few drinks and would rather not have to drive.

My only negative MATA experience? The filthy bathrooms in the North End Terminal. On the first day I rode a bus to work, I needed to make a pit stop while I waited for my transfer bus. But much to my horror, every stall in the ladies’ bathroom was, um, well let’s just say, worse than a porta-potty. Meanwhile, a guy was mopping the floor in the terminal’s lobby. Perhaps those bathrooms should have been a janitorial priority.

But potty talk aside, the Car-Free Challenge was an enlightening and empowering experience. I learned to use the city buses, and I burned thousands of calories on bike rides and walks, even if they were done in uncomfortable shoes.

— Bianca Phillips

[page]

Transportation By Any Other Name: Alexandra’s Story

Justin Fox Burks

Alexandra Pusateri rides a trolley

Using public transportation worried me. The idea of independence that comes with driving a car is ingrained within some of us, and I was definitely one of those people.

I grew up in Raleigh and East Memphis, where you can pull into in a parking lot right in front of a building, take care of your business, and leave.

But since moving downtown, where parking is a commodity, I decided I should start to make the best use of public transportation. And hey, maybe I could save some gas money, right?

The city’s 30-Day Car-Free Challenge was right up my alley. I utilized all methods of transport available to me — trolley, bus, bike, and naturally, my two feet. When the challenge began, my favorite mode quickly became the trolley. I particularly enjoyed riding the Madison line. Unfortunately, an early April trolley fire on the Madison line put an end to that, but the bus line that temporarily replaced the trolley might have been the next best thing.

While riding the bus and trolley, I was able to read, catch up on homework, andappreciate my surroundings more than I would have in a car. When I arrived at my destination, I was usually more relaxed and in better spirits.

Commuting by bicycle was another adventure. I learned very quickly which roads were suitable for a newbie’s travels, and I got an instant lesson in topography. The hilly Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue is not to be messed with for an unprepared cyclist. What would have been a 10-minute drive from home to work turned into an hour-long commute by bike due to my lack of conditioning.

As I got around town on a bicycle, the bike lanes made me feel safer. I didn’t feel like I had to move into the center of a shared lane to prevent a driver from overtaking me. I found most drivers stayed out of the bike lanes, but there was still a stubborn person or two who seemed to think the bike lanes didn’t exist, particularly on Madison Avenue.

By mapping routes ahead of time via Google Maps, I was able to figure out quickly and easily where I needed to go on the MATA routes. Gone are the days of memorizing bus maps — although that wouldn’t hurt.

MATA offers a texting service through which you’re supposed to be able to text a number from a bus stop to a MATA email address and receive arrival times for the next three buses at that stop. But the return texts from MATA took far too long to be helpful.

I needed to catch a bus to a class at the University of Memphis, but MATA didn’t text me back to tell me a bus was due in 30 minutes until an hour later, well after I’d already caught the bus to class.

During the last bit of the challenge, I came down with a cold and was no longer able to commute by bike. Also, as though to taunt me, the weather changed for a few days to a nippy cold in the mornings and evenings, leaving me not wanting to stand outside and wait for a bus.

Thankfully, Lyft, a mobile ride-sharing service, launched in the Memphis market in the nick of time. Lyft bills itself as “your friend with a car,” which is just what I needed.

As soon as Lyft launched in late April, I began using it up to three times a day. Lyft is cheaper than a taxi ride, and the drivers arrived at my apartment within 10 minutes. Every driver I encountered was friendly and helpful and, since all the transactions are done with the mobile app, there’s no exchange of cash.

Despite a few hiccups, the Car-Free Challenge went swimmingly. I learned a lot about my city, and I only hope Memphis continues on its path of innovation and improvement to make it even easier to travel by bus, trolley, or bike.

— Alexandra Pusateri

Dawn Vinson
Downtown Memphis Commission’s Director of Marketing & Events

Justin Fox Burks

Dawn Vinson

Dawn Vinson made it for 30 days without a single car cheat, which she credits to her being “stubborn like that.” But she admits it was no easy feat.

She lives in Hickory Hill, an area with limited bus service, so the nearest bus stop to her home is a three-mile walk or bike ride away.

“Buses don’t run out there. The bus I take, the 36, is always packed, and a few stops after I get on, it becomes standing-room only. Obviously, people need it. I wish it ran more often or we had another choice,” Vinson says.

Vinson would strap her bike on the bus’ bike rack and take it downtown. From her stop, she biked the remaining few blocks to her office at Adams and Main. Her evening commute, however, usually involved a two-hour, 20-mile bike ride home, since the earliest evening bus to Hickory Hill doesn’t run until 7:15 p.m.

“There’s a one-mile stretch on Mount Moriah that is so awful that I walked [on the sidewalk] for about one-third of it. There are seven lanes of traffic with interstate on and off ramps,” Vinson says. “The sidewalks are so awful. You could break an ankle trying to walk. That’s the one place where I’ve gotten a flat tire.”

But despite her long (and at-times treacherous) commute, Vinson says she enjoyed the Challenge and hopes to be totally car-free one day.

“I love that I can get anywhere I need to go whether I have a car or not,” Vinson says. “For me, that’s as good as money in the bank.”

Justin Fox Burks

Tiffany Futch

Tiffany Futch
Instructional Designer at ServiceMaster

On the days Tiffany Futch tried busing from her Midtown home to her Bartlett office, she had “a two-mile walk and a two-hour bus excursion.” She quickly learned that busing to work would be “too much of a hassle.”

Lucky for Futch, her friends were happy to carpool.

“My friends really jumped in to make sure this was a success for me,” Futch says. “I could call or text someone at 6 a.m. and they would say, ‘Yeah, I’ll get you to work.'”

Biking was Futch’s transit option of choice for flexible weekend days, when she had the time to bike to Shelby Farms. And she relied on her own two feet whenever she could. But being a pedestrian didn’t come without some challenges

“The worst sidewalks I encountered on a regular basis are on Madison, right in front of the Center for Independent Living,” Furtch says. “Every time, I stub my toe or I trip.”

Shahin Samiei
Research Associate for the University of Memphis

Justin Fox Burks

Shahin Samiei

Shahin Samiei already lives without a car in Memphis, but he signed up for the Car-Free Challenge anyway.

The Memphis Bus Riders Union secretary says he’s “pretty savvy” about the MATA bus system, and he has a direct bus line from his East Memphis home to his job in Midtown.

Samiei said the challenge gave him the chance to reflect on his years of riding the bus and to think about how some routes he used to frequent no longer exist thanks to budget cuts that have forced MATA to trim service.

“MATA can not do a better job than it does without the proper funding,” Samiei says. “They have been facing year after year of budget cuts from all three levels — city, state, and federal. Without those dollars, they simply can’t serve the people of Memphis.”

Justin Fox Burks

Darrell Cobbins

Darrell Cobbins
President/CEO of Universal Commercial Real Estate

Darrell Cobbins lives about a mile away from the Midtown real estate business he owns, so biking seemed the most viable option for commuting to work during the Challenge. But there was just one problem.

“I haven’t ridden a bike since I was 13 or 14 years old. I’m 41 now,” Cobbins says.

But Cobbins dusted off his cycling skills and put foot to pedal for the month of April. He quickly learned from cyclist friends that he needed to wear a helmet, something people just didn’t do when he was kid. And he said his former football coach’s wisdom helped him play it safe on city streets.

“My coaches always said, ‘Keep your head on a swivel, so you don’t get knocked out.’ I find myself just continuously looking around at every angle [while cycling],” says Cobbins, who thinks drivers could use more education on how to share the road with cyclists.

Cobbins says he appreciated the extra workout he got by biking, and he’s beginning to see the city through fresh eyes.

“When you’re in a vehicle, you don’t really take in your immediate surroundings,” he says. “But [cycling] makes you more aware of things that you didn’t realize were right there in walking distance of your house.”

​Patrick Jones
Legal Assistant at Miles Mason Family Law Group

Patrick Jones

Patrick Jones’ first trip on a bus ended when the bus broke down. It did not deter Jones, however, who continued to ride the bus (and his bicycle) throughout April. His subsequent bus experiences weren’t nearly as dramatic.

“I took the bus down Poplar to Clark Tower, and the bus was actually going so fast that he had to pull over and stop for three minutes because they were ahead of schedule,” he said.

On one commute, he had an issue finding the bus stop.

“I looked down the street and there was a bus stop across the street with a shed and a bench,” he said. “But that wasn’t the direction I wanted to go. I looked to the right and didn’t see any green signs or poles. I realized that all the green signs look the other way. Every time I saw a sign on a pole, I had to turn around and see it’s a ‘No Parking’ sign [instead of a bus stop].”

Bicycle events

* On May 16th, the Downtown Memphis Commission will host its fifth annual Bike To Work Day, when downtown workers are encouraged to commute by bicycle. The three companies with the most participants will win a trophy at the lunch-time Bike Expo in Court Square. The Expo, featuring food trucks and live music, begins at 11:30 a.m. To register, go to www.biketoworkmemphis.com.

* On May 17th, the annual Bikesploitation festival kicks off at the National Ornamental Metal Museum. The day-long event will feature a bike parade and slow-ride jam, a bicycle painting garden, a mobile music machine (a 15-foot bicycle carrying live musicians), mini-bike races, film screenings, a group bike ride, and more. For a full schedule, go to www.bikesploitation.com.