Mayor O’Connell speaks on transit plan after recent pedestrian crashes
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — A 63-year-old is in the hospital after being hit by a car in South Nashville on Murfreesboro Pike.
Police do not expect charges against the driver because the victim walked outside of the crosswalk near Nashboro village Thursday night while the driver had a green light. On Friday, Mayor Freddie O’Connell addressed questions on how his newly announced transit plan could prevent people from getting hurt in the future.
“So often on those major corridors like Murfreesboro Pike, where yes, this was another tragic incident and with 2022 having been the deadliest record yet for pedestrians in Nashville, we know we can do better. We know our infrastructure choices can save lives,” said O’Connell.
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In a meeting Friday, O’Connell highlighted how his transit plan, “Choose How You Move,” could help save lives. It includes safety upgrades on 33 miles of Nashville’s most dangerous roads, including Murfreesboro Pike. The plan also adds 39 miles of what it calls complete streets projects, meaning sidewalks, bikeways, lighting, and better crossings.
“Often on those larger pikes and corridors, you’ll see not just several blocks, but often stretches of a half mile or more where there is no place to safely cross, and so recent infrastructure updates have included things like mid-block crossings, better marked intersections that are signalized,” the mayor told News 2.
O’Connell also plans to eliminate slip lanes in those high injury stretches, which means there will be less places where cars and pedestrians are at conflict.
It’s a change Sarah Larson, the founder of Nashville Girls Who Walk, a group that meets and walks across the city weekly, says is welcome.
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“When I first started the club, we were doing a different park or a different trail every time, but as our numbers grew, I had to think a little bit more strategically about where we were walking,” said Larson.
Larson told News 2 in just a few short years, the group has already grown to 70+ women and safety is top of mind.
“It’s more on me to make sure that I’m strategically planning where there are sidewalks, which there’s not a lot of them. Especially, I think of 12 South. That whole major way where all the shops are and stuff, they all have sidewalks, but you try to go down any side street and most of the time there’s not a sidewalk. We can’t walk in the street with 50 girls, so it gets a little tricky there.”
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The mayor wants to increase the sales tax by half a cent to help pay for his transit plan. That plan still has to go before Metro Council. If it gets approval there, it could be before voters come November.
Larson said the plan could spotlight key safety features for the future that benefit those who love to walk in the city.
“I think it makes me very hopeful,” said Larson.
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