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Walk Bike Nashville pushes the city to keep public infrastructure open during private events

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Courtesy Walk Bike Nashville
Katherine McDonell has been biking to work for about a decade, and says that when the pedestrian bridge closes, cyclists and walkers are forced to choose a more dangerous path.
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During last week’s Music City Grand Prix, walkers and bike commuters trying to cross from the east side to downtown were met with roadblocks. The pedestrian bridge was closed, and so were some bike lanes and streets.

Nashville’s roadways are notoriously unfriendly to cyclists and pedestrians, but frequent events and constant construction only make commuting more dangerous.

The nonprofit Walk Bike Nashville has been advocating for a change.

“It has to do with working class citizens being able to get to their jobs every single day,” says Cathy Carrillo of Walk Bike Nashville. “And when you don’t have access to that bike lane, you don’t have access to that sidewalk, it means that you are then risking your life even more to be able to contribute to the city that’s putting you at the back of their minds whenever they’re going through these events or development.”

Lack of access to infrastructure is more than just an inconvenience, she says. It can be deadly too. This year is slated to be one of the deadliest on Nashville’s roadways.

This week, Walk Bike Nashville delivered a petition to the city with more than 800 signatures.

The mayor’s office told advocates that they will introduce legislation specifically geared at keeping safe walk and bikeways during construction projects.

But Walk Bike Nashville says that’s not enough. They want that same protection for public infrastructure during private events.

Paige Pfleger, Criminal Justice Reporter

Paige Pfleger covers criminal justice for WPLN News. She has investigated guns and juvenile justice as a fellow with ProPublica's Local Reporting Network, and her investigation into domestic violence and firearms dispossession won a regional Edward R. Murrow award and was a finalist for an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award and a Livingston Award. She previously covered criminal justice and addiction in Ohio and was named the state's reporter of the year by the Associated Press. Her work has appeared nationally on NPR, The Washington Post, Marketplace, and PRI's The World, and she has worked in the newsrooms of The Tennessean, Michigan Radio, WHYY, Vox and NPR headquarters in DC.

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