Tag: Riverside Drive

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News Blog News Feature

New Plan Would Slow Traffic on Riverside Drive

Memphis River Parks Partnership

A new plan would deliver a “safer, slower Riverside Drive” by introducing a number of traffic-calming interventions along the stretch bordering Tom Lee Park. 

The new plan was unveiled Monday by the Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP). Carol Coletta, MRPP president and CEO, said the design for the street meets the criteria set in mediation with Memphis In May International Festival and approved by Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland. 

If you’ve been on Riverside Drive, you know it feels too much like an expressway.

Carol Coletta, president and CEO of the Memphis Parks Partnership

“If you’ve been on Riverside Drive, you know it feels too much like an expressway,” Coletta said during a presentation Monday. “A lot of people think it’s an expressway between I-55 and I-40 but it’s not. 

“Expressways were never meant to he bet the shortest routes through a city. They were meant to be the fastest route through a city. The fastest route should not be Riverside Drive, the street that divides Downtown neighborhoods and those just beyond Downtown from its Riverfront.”

The new plan would focus on three crossings across Riverside: one at Vance, another at Huling, and one at Butler. At these would be pedestrian crossings to connect Tom Lee Park. These crossings would combine several elements to slow traffic and make crossing safer. 

Memphis River Parks Partnership

As motorists approach a crossing, they’d first encounter a speed hump, warning them of the crossing ahead. At the crossing, they’d find a speed table, a ramp larger than a speed hump. The tops of these speed tables would be level with sidewalks on both dies of the street. So, pedestrians would not have to step down as they crossed and the tables would be high enough to force slower speeds. 

Memphis River Parks Partnership

“You’ve got this combination of design mechanisms that force traffic to slow down,” Colletta said. “Otherwise, your car gets damaged and, maybe so do you because of the jolt you’ll feel.”

This combination is expected to slow traffic at the crossings to 15 miles per hour. 

Memphis River Parks Partnership

Spots for parallel parking along the street are also expected to slow traffic. Such parking will be available only in three “pods” along the western edge of Riverside. Together, these areas are expected to yield 60 parking spots along the street. 

To the immediate west of the parallel parking pods will be a median to separate cars parked there and a straight path for bikes and scooters. Coletta said that path is hoped to keep that faster traffic out of the main part of the park for strolling pedestrians.

Memphis River Parks Partnership

The new design also removes the decorative median strip from the center of Riverside Drive. Smaller medians will remain, though, closer to the three street crossings. 

Coletta said rules enforcement and traffic signs will still be needed along Riverside but hoped the new plan will slow traffic more naturally. 

“The more we rely on design to make streets safer, the better off we’ll be and the more likely we are to sustain the slow speeds that deliver safety,” she said.

Construction of the new Riverside Drive is slated to begin when construction of the new Tom Lee Park begins. Tha projects kicks off after MIM wraps up later this year. 

MRPP is expected to unveil updated plans and new drawings for Tom Lee Park during a call next week.   

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News News Blog

Reactions Divided on Riverside Reopening

Memphis River Parks Partnership/Facebook

Leaders of two Downtown neighborhood groups disagree on the recent reopening of Riverside Drive but both share concerns about safety on the street, especially in the wake of the shooting of a 13-year-old girl there last weekend.

Riverside Drive reopened permanently to full-time car traffic on Friday, March 12th. The street between Union and Georgia was closed to automobile traffic by city of Memphis officials in March 2020. That move was a part of the Safer-At-Home order to limit capacity at city parks, including Tom Lee Park on the Memphis riverfront.

At the time, the city’s engineering office said the closure was “for an indefinite amount of time.” The detour route had motorists using Crump Boulevard, Second Street, B.B. King Boulevard., and Jefferson Avenue.

Riverside was reopened to traffic during weekdays in August. But the parking lot to Tom Lee Park remained closed in an effort to limit capacity at the park.

The street has for years been closed for nearly two months each year for the Memphis In May International Festival.

Two men shot at each other from cars on Riverside when the street opened nearly two weeks ago. Bullets from one of those guns struck a 13-year-old girl riding a scooter near the street.

The reopening was pushed, in part, by the Downtown Neighborhood Association (DNA). Jerred Price, the group’s president, said in a statement that the closure was “problematic” for disabled Memphians who could not use Riverside to access the park. DNA said Front Street neighborhoods “grew very concerned” with the increased traffic.

The DNA said it convened a committee of other Downtown neighborhood associations. Nearly all in the group, “voiced their desire for the street to be reopened, the concerns of its closure, and how it adversely affects them and the people within their neighborhoods.”

”We are happy this taxpayer-paid-for byway is restored once again,” Price said in a statement. “However, we are not blind to the safety challenges and issues we face with this street. As with many other streets in our city, cruising, and law breakers make this street sometimes unsafe for pedestrians and cyclists.

George Abbott, director of external affairs with the Memphis River Parks Parnership (MRPP), said his group will “continue to work towards safer conditions on Riverside Drive.”

“We’ve been working for a number of years with stakeholders — the city of Memphis and Downtown Memphis Commission — on potential solutions,” Abbott said. “We look forward to putting some of those in place with the work that’s to be done on Tom Lee Park.”

In July and August 2020, the South Main Association (SMA) conducted a survey on riverfront safety and about Riverside Drive’s closure to motorized vehicles. The survey was intended primarily for SMA members, but the group left it open to the public. The survey got more than 300 responses from residents across Downtown.

SMA said, “as springtime activity increases around South Main, Riverside Drive, and the riverfront, we feel that now is the appropriate time to release the results.”
⠀
Here are a few takeaways of the survey:

• 60.1 percent supported temporary closure of Riverside

• 52.9 percent supported permanent closure of Riverside

• 61.7 percent said they felt safer with closure of Riverside

• 51.5 percent felt it was important for Riverside to be open during commuting hours

• 78.1 percent supported weekend closures of Riverside

• 59.9 percent said the closure of Riverside made Tom Lee Park more accessible

• 75 percent said they increased their visits to Tom Lee Park after the closure of Riverside

Eric Bourgeois, president of the SMA, said no notice of the reopening was given to South Main residents, a move that was “disheartening to say the least.”

“Since last fall, all Memphians had access to a vehicle-free Riverside Drive on weekends,” Bourgeois said in a statement. “This enabled people to enjoy bike rides, dog walks, strolls with friends, and immediate access to Tom Lee Park.

“Now, Downtowners have to, once again, hear the roaring of modified pipes as people with no regard for pedestrians zoom up and down the street until the wee hours of the night, especially on the weekends. As I’m sure you know, these activities resulted in a teenager being shot last week.

“I am concerned that the rushed reopening of Riverside Drive, combined with the springtime, pent-up energy of people eager to get back outside, will present more problems than solutions for those who live, work, and play in South Main and Downtown Memphis.”

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News The Fly-By

Week That Was: the Virus (Of Course), Mud Island Amphitheater, and Black Lives Matter Avenue

CREDIT: Courtesy: Jerred Price

Monday
• Shelby County added 304 new cases of COVID-19 on test results reported from the prior weekend, bringing the total number of cases to 16,767. Eleven deaths were recorded on the weekend for a total of 244.

Courtesy: Jerred Price

Image concepts of Mud Island Amphitheater with corporate branding.

Tuesday

• Shelby County added 211 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to 16,987. ICU capacity was at 85 percent.

• The Mud Island Amphitheater has been quiet for a while now, but a new group announced plans to try to change that.

Jerred Price was elected president of the Downtown Neighborhood Association (DNA) in February. He formed a committee focused on reviving Mud Island Amphitheater.
Price said he hoped the group can attract corporations interested in the naming rights to the amphitheater in exchange for funds to improve it and, ultimately, begin to host shows there once again. (See image examples above.)

“(Mud Island Amphitheater) is challenging, but it can still work, and it did for years and years and years,” Price said. “It’s just become not the focus. I think a lot of Downtowners are really disappointed in the condition of it.”

• A Memphis City Council committee agreed to rename a stretch of Poplar “Black Lives Matter Avenue” last week.

However, the proposal was stalled before it could make it to the full council for a vote. Another council vote that Tuesday formed a new committee that will review the renaming of Memphis city parks, streets, and place names.

Should the Black Lives Matter renaming pass out of committee, it would then head to the Land Use Control Board for a final say. If approved, Poplar — between Front Street and Danny Thomas, which runs in front of 201 Poplar — would get the name change.

Kristen Walker

Wednesday

• Shelby County added 277 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to 17,255. Seven new deaths were recorded, bringing the total death toll to 251.

• The Humane Society of Memphis and Shelby County (HSMSC) was searching for people to foster shelter animals, especially kittens.

Society officials said kittens are susceptible to disease and can’t stay in the shelter environment for long. Last month, the shelter’s kitten intake was up 236 percent, compared to June 2019.

While they get more puppies and kittens during warmer months, officials said they received three times the requests this year due to a variety of reasons related to COVID-19, such as limited facilities offering spay and neuter surgeries, as well as fewer shelter options for surrendering litters.

Google Maps

Thursday
• Riverside Drive will reopen to vehicles on Monday, August 3rd, but will close again on weekends, according to the Mississippi River Parks Partnership (MRPP) last week.

The group said the street will close each Friday at 6 p.m. and open again at 6 a.m. on Monday mornings “to allow people to use the street and park safely.” The Tom Lee Park parking lot will remain closed.

• Shelby County added 429 new cases of COVID-19 on test results reported since Wednesday morning, bringing the total number of cases to 17,255. The death toll rose by five to 256.

• The MRPP, in response to an announcement from the Downtown Neighborhood Association (see above) regarding Mud Island Amphitheater, said refurbishing the venue would be costly and was more complicated than just upgrading the amphitheater itself.

George Abbott, director of external affairs for the MRPP, said the amphitheater should be considered a part of the entire Mud Island River Park. To deliver the venue as a “minimum viable product” — for safety upgrades to even allow shows back there at all — would cost $2 million. But to do it right for modern productions, it would cost more than $10 million.

“I don’t think there’s really anyone who disagrees with the fact that we’ve got an asset on our hands,” Abbott said. “The discussion really is, again, we need the right partner to be in place, to operate this at a level that we all want to see here in Memphis.”

Friday
• Shelby County added 374 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to 18,058. Three deaths were reported for a total of 259. The number of active cases in the county fell below 5,000 (4,980) and was only 27.6 percent of all virus cases reported since the disease arrived here in March.

For fuller version of these stories and even more local news, visit The News Blog at memphisflyer.com

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News News Blog

Riverside Drive to Reopen August 3rd

CREDIT: Google Maps

Google Maps

Riverside Drive will reopen to vehicles on Monday, August 3rd but will close again on weekends, according to the Mississippi River Parks Partnership (MRPP).

In a Thursday morning email, the MRPP said the street will close each Friday at 6 p.m. and open again at 6 a.m. on Monday mornings “to allow people to use the street and park safely.” The Tom Lee Park parking lot will remain closed.

The MRPP said it regularly counts visitors to the parks it manages and takes note of their activities. During the coronavirus pandemic, more people have been using the riverfront parks and using Riverside Drive “to spread out across Tom Lee Park and onto the street.”

“An analysis of interviews with park visitors over the past couple of months shows that ‘peace,’ ‘safe,’ and ‘convenient’ are overwhelmingly used to describe the atmosphere and nature of Tom Lee Park with Riverside Drive closed to vehicles,” reads the statement. “The partnership will continue our work with Mayor Jim Strickland, Memphis Police Department, and city engineering to find ways to continue to deliver this atmosphere even as cars and motorcycles return to Riverside Drive.”

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Roundabout to a Dead End

Last Friday, the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) announced that it would delay its planned closure of the I-55 “Old Bridge” over the Mississippi River for at least a year while it conducted “further studies” on the economic impact of the project.

“Over the past several weeks, we have heard from residents, business owners, elected officials, and other stakeholders in Memphis and in Arkansas, and we understand there is a significant level of concern over a full closure of the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge,” TDOT Commissioner John Schroer said. “We want to take the opportunity to address those concerns before moving forward with construction.” In other words, back to the drawing board.

I don’t want to say there were a couple high-fives given in the Flyer office, but we were pretty pleased that our efforts to raise civic consciousness on this ill-advised plan bore some fruit. Reporter Toby Sells covered the project extensively, and we vigorously editorialized against it. The Commercial Appeal, on the other hand, editorialized in support of the closure project and ran a couple of soft, pro-TDOT articles.

Mayor A C Wharton was also seemingly clueless about the project’s potential to devastate the local economy, offering tepid, boilerplate support for TDOT’s bridge closure plan.

Whoever the next mayor is, whether it’s Wharton or one of the candidates running against him, it’s essential that he get actively involved in helping to ensure that this TDOT project has as small a negative impact as possible on our tourism business, our transportation and distribution industry, and the booming Bass Pro Pyramid. Memphis business and political leaders need to be proactive and not let Nashville bureaucrats determine our future. They need to join with officials on the Arkansas side — who should get most of the credit for stopping the closure plan — and begin working with TDOT to craft the least painful alternative.

To that end, easy access to downtown (and Bass Pro) via northbound I-55 to Riverside is critical. That means the proposed “roundabout” also has to be off the table. Replacing a free-flowing four-lane entrance to (and exit from) the city with an intersection that forces all north-south traffic to interact with Crump Boulevard traffic heading onto and off the bridge is not progress.

But for now, we’re content to enjoy a victorious first step — stopping what TDOT officials said less than a month ago was the absolute “final plan.” No further changes were possible, they said. In response to which, I’m happy to quote Arkansas state Senator Keith Ingram, who said, prophetically: “TDOT probably didn’t think the Overton Park expressway was going to be stopped, either.”

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News News Blog

Riverside Drive Bike Lane Named In Top 10 List

Riverside Drive bike lane

  • Riverside Drive bike lane

A pro-cycling website, peopleforbikes.org, has released their list of 2014’s top 10 bike lanes, and Memphis’ new lane on Riverside Drive ranked number-three.

Rather than reopen all of Riverside following the Memphis In May festivities, the city left two lanes between Beale and Georgia closed to vehicular traffic, creating a two-way bike path and walkway that is protected by a median.

The road diet is a part of a pilot project, and no permanent decisions will be made about whether or not to keep the lane until Riverside is repaved this coming summer. At a July public meeting about the lanes, some voiced support of the new lanes, and other claimed that squeezing vehicle traffic into two lanes was dangerous.

But peopleforbikes.org is all for the Riverside bike lane. Here’s what they had to say:

In bike planning, Memphis is the anti-San Francisco. The city reasons that there’s no better way to make its planning process public than to rapidly get a project on the ground, listen to the ways people react to it, and adjust as needed. “Ready, fire, aim,” Memphis planner Kyle Wagenschutz says. Riverside Drive is a perfect example of that agile approach. Instead of reopening all four lanes to auto traffic after Riverside’s annual closure for the Memphis in May festival, the city restriped half the street to create two lanes of car traffic, a bidirectional median-protected bike lane and a walkway. Soon, this route will be the best link between downtown Memphis and the Harahan Bridge crossing to Arkansas.

To see what other lanes around the country made the list, go here.

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Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said…

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

About Bianca Phillips’ story, “License to Wed” …

As a Christian, I won’t ever accept gay marriage as valid. As an American, however, I find it appalling that anyone should be either provided or denied a benefit because of their marital status or sexual preference. The only perversion in the entire gay-marriage process is in the IRS/government having a say one way or another in who has a right to leave their money to whom.

If the thought process is that stable couples promote family and community values and should be rewarded with tax and benefit breaks, then what the hell difference does it make if two people are heterosexual, homosexual, married or otherwise? A citizen should be able to leave his estate to any significant other he chooses without government getting its nasty hands on the property a second time. Had the IRS been set up properly to favor households in the first place, most of the venom, energy, and cruelty surrounding the entire homosexual partnership issue would have never become such a passionate and vicious protest in the first place.

Tommy Volinchak

About recent mass shootings …

How many of the shooters study music and the arts? Schools keep removing music and the arts from their agenda and yet that is what brings out the goodness in people. How many of the mass shooters were musicians? Probably none.

Dagmar

About Toby Sells’ post, “Riverside Gets a Road Diet, Bike, and Pedestrian Lanes” …

Really bad idea! We need more traffic lanes and more parking downtown, not less! The reason why there was little negative impact on traffic when Riverside was down to two lanes [for Memphis In May] was because so many people opted to go to restaurants in either Mississippi or Germantown/Cordova/Collierville in order to avoid the traffic nightmare on Riverside.

Babybabybaby

In a few months, people are going to forget there were ever two lanes each way on Riverside. It’ll be like the great scare about Madison Avenue: Some people will freak out and then it’ll be fine. Relax people.

TennesseeDrew

Greg Cravens

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s Letter from the Editor on politics in a convenience store …

Bruce, if the couple at the store were attractive Eddie Bauer types, would you have been willing to engage them in discourse?

crackoamerican

When engaged in checkout line political discussion, I find that holding my quart beer by the neck lends itself to civil debate.

CL Mullins

Maybe he meant the situation in Ukraine or Libya or Syria, or maybe it was the immorality of drone warfare, or the Edward Snowden revelations. But I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s because the president is black.

Jeff

About Kevin Lipe’s post, “Grizpocalypse Now Redux: Nine Questions About Where We’re At” …

All the people who rave about the Levien acquisitions always conveniently ignore the Prince trade, which ranks right behind Thabeet as the second worst acquisition in Griz history.

Sailinstuff

I think the Grizzlies reputation angle has been way overstated by the media, both here and elsewhere. This saga doesn’t help the organization’s reputation, but it wasn’t as if big name free agents were dying to play for the Griz before this.

Iggy

About Jackson Baker’s post, “Act Two for Pablo Pereya — This Time as a Republican Activist” …

I am sure that the Latino community will forget how the rest of the GOP has fought to deport all of them, even the ones who are naturalized citizens. To paraphrase an old saying, not all Republicans are xenophobes, but 99 percent of xenophobes are Republicans.

Leftwingcracker

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Opinion

Biking the Harahan Bridge as $30+ Million Thrill Ride

harahan3.jpg

Once called the Harahan Project, the Main Street to Main Street Connector Project is nine miles of street and sidewalk improvements in downtown Memphis and West Memphis, Arkansas and one mile of pedestrian and bike bridge across the Mississippi River.

“This is a number-one priority for us,” Mayor A C Wharton said Monday in a briefing on the project that is now estimated to cost “more than $30 million” in local, private, and federal funds. It will tie Main Street in Memphis from north of the Convention Center to Main Street (Broadway) in West Memphis. The ten-mile project includes one mile of cantilevered boardwalk off the Harahan Bridge, 3.8 miles in Arkansas floodland and downtown West Memphis, and a little over 5 miles in downtown Memphis from desolate blocks of Main Street north of The Pyramid and convention center to South Main Street and a new pedestrian bridge over Riverside Drive at Channel 3 Drive.

Because $14.8 million in federal transportation funds are involved, all of this has to be compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act. Construction will begin in September and the bridge section should open in August of 2014.

The bridge section will be either 10 feet wide or 12 feet wide, depending on how much planners and funders decide to pinch the budget. There will be a high, unclimbable fence on the railroad side and a lower fence with a mesh screen on the other side to permit river views. The deck will be light-weight aluminum coated to lower the summer heat. New steel bridge supports are raising the project cost. The “boardwalk” will be open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and have security cameras and emergency telephones.

There will be a parking area on the West Memphis side close to the western entrance to the pedestrian bridge. The western approach is covered because it is lower than the train tracks.

Wharton said it is time to accept the Main Street Mall with its trolley tracks, empty buildings and vacant storefronts in downtown Memphis for what it is — a pedestrian and trolley mall where (most) cars are banned.

“What we need to do now is make it the absolute best we can and make it distinctly Memphis,” he said.

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Opinion

Bike Striping of North Parkway Is Underway

FlintCat1pg4-PreMarkBikeLane.jpg

Paint crews were putting in white stripes and markers for a bike lane on North Parkway Tuesday.

They were working on the eastbound lanes between Manassas (a block east of Danny Thomas) and the overpass at Watkins. The finished product will include bike lanes on both sides from Danny Thomas to Rhodes College east of McLean.

In a couple of other bike notes, I like the idea of closing Riverside Drive now and then for bike events like the charity ride for St. Jude last weekend. The hills and scenery are great this time of year. A couple of Sunday “Riverside Drive Rides” each month might generate more interest in biking in general and the Harahan Project in particular.

This Saturday there will be a 100-mile Blues City Blues ride to Tipton County starting at the Pyramid for the benefit of the Greenline.

Finally, I was really impressed by all the bikes in Missoula, Montana when I visited there last week. The campus bike racks were jammed, as were the racks and lightposts and just about anything else to lock on to downtown. Great network of paths to near and far, campus and town, factory and farms. I don’t know how cities reach critical mass but I suspect it starts with students. I’m always surprised by how few bikes I see at Rhodes or U. of Memphis.

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Special Sections

A Bird’s-Eye View: The Mississippi River Bridges

78cf/1243306029-bridges-aerialview.jpg I wanted to share an interesting old photograph that I found tucked away in a Central High School yearbook. It’s an aerial view of the three old Memphis bridges that cross the Mississippi at the South Bluffs area. (Click on it to enlarge it.)

The view is looking eastward towards Memphis from Arkansas. From left to right, you have the Harahan Bridge (1914), the Frisco Bridge (1892 — called “The Great Bridge” when it first opened), and the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge (1949).

What’s really interesting is that if you look very carefully at the top of the photo, at the easternmost end of the Harahan Bridge, you can see a portion of the insanely complicated one-way road system that gave automobiles access to the roadways that were suspended on the outside of the bridge. They were added later, you see, and there was no space to put them inside the bridge spans.