How Do We Make a Safe Riverside Drive — Virtual Public Meeting Recap

Memphis River Parks Partnership held a virtual public meeting Monday, September 21, 2020, to consider ways to make Riverside Drive safer, slower, and accessible for all visitors to a reimagined Tom Lee Park. Participants overwhelmingly supported improvements that achieved those goals.

Chris Bennett of Studio Gang and Will Tietje of SCAPE Studio presented potential improvements to Riverside Drive that included:

• Creating generous speed tables every 1000 feet on Riverside Drive to enable safe crossings at three stairway entrances to the park
• Making all crossings fully accessible, meeting ADA compliance regulations
• Calming traffic with pavement changes and rumble strips within the roadway approaching each crosswalk
• Motion-activated pedestrian flashers at crossings
• Setting street width to ten feet, the City of Memphis standard lane width
• Varying the pacing of trees and landscaping along Riverside Drive
• Adding parking pods alongside Riverside Drive but outside of Tom Lee Park
• Adding heavy landscaping to edges of parking pods and the park to discourage unsafe crossings

In their comments and questions, participants overwhelmingly supported designs for Riverside Drive that slow traffic, that make the road safer, and that make the park fully accessible.

Menti-supported polling questions were used to gauge participants’ opinions and priorities. Participants said their top two reasons for using Riverside Drive are 1) recreation or exercise, and 2) accessing Tom Lee Park. Other lower ranked uses were: 3) traveling to an expressway entrance; 4) accessing other parks on the riverfront; 5) visiting businesses, entertainment/sports venues or other destinations; 6) traveling to and from home; and 7) commuting to and from work.

Comments by participants about their riverfront experience with Riverside Drive open to cars and motorcycles were mostly negative and descriptions of Riverside Drive closed to cars and motorcycles were largely positive.

The ADA accessible entrances designed for Riverside Drive were supported for slowing traffic and making Tom Lee Park safer, beautiful, and inclusive.

Parking along Riverside Drive was considered very important by 30%, somewhat important 27%, somewhat unimportant 12%, and not important at all 32%.

Meeting attendees ranked the potential improvements to Riverside Drive improvements in the following order:

1. Raised speed tables and crossing areas
2. Textured pavement/rumble strips at North and South Park Entry.
3. Mid-street pedestrian refuge islands at pedestrian crossings.
4. Slimmer lane widths.
5. Wide pedestrian crosswalks.
6. Enlarged pedestrian waiting areas.

In addition to the solutions presented in the meeting, attendees suggested additional safety enhancements through comments and Q&A. Some asked for the street to be closed to traffic or reduced to two lanes. Others expressed the need for urgent action and enforcement reiterating that today’s conditions are unsafe for pedestrians and bikes.

The Partnership organized the virtual public meeting as part of the design process for Tom Lee Park to ensure harmony between the four-lane street and the park. The meeting had 142 participants and was open to the general public.