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Nashville aims for zero preventable traffic deaths but has miles to go





Peter Robison was hit from behind by a truck on Old Harding Pike during his bike ride to work in May 2019. He suffered bruised ribs and a wrist injury.Larry McCormack / Main Street Nashville

Peter Robison was hit from behind by a truck on Old Harding Pike during his bike ride to work in May 2019. He suffered bruised ribs and a wrist injury.Larry McCormack / Main Street Nashville

Peter Robison enjoyed biking to work from his home in Bellevue to downtown Nashville.

The 12-mile trip was pleasant and provided a convenient opportunity to exercise.

But in May 2019, Robison’s biking habit was jeopardized.

While riding down Old Harding Pike, Robison was hit from behind by a truck and knocked off his bike.

A witness stopped and told Robison the truck had been swerving all over the road. The truck didn’t stop, and Robison has never found it. The police department categorized the case as suspended for lack of evidence to actively investigate.

The collision shattered the passenger side mirror of the truck, and Robison, who was wearing a helmet, had abrasions on his arm and chest that made the shape of the mirror.

After emergency services checked on Robison, he limped home. He later felt bad enough to go to an urgent care facility.

There, he had to get a tetanus shot for lost skin and learned he had bruised ribs. He suffered a wrist injury that will forever flare up when he writes or types.

 

 

Robison said he was a careful rider, especially by turning cars, but “there’s not much you can do about getting hit from behind.”

Robison said he knows other people who have gotten hit on the road. His own kids have told him they’ve almost been hit walking to school in the area.

He knows he was lucky that the truck that hit him wasn’t going faster because it could have been much, much worse.

On average, there have been eight cyclist, 75 pedestrian and 360 driver deaths or serious injuries per year since 2014, according to Metro Nashville data.

In 2021, 38 pedestrians and two scooter riders died on Nashville roads.

This year, there have already been five pedestrian deaths and one cyclist death.

Nashville is hoping to reverse the trend through the adoption of a Vision Zero plan.

Vision Zero is a nationwide push to get traffic deaths and serious injuries (from car, pedestrian and bike collisions) to zero. Vision Zero operates on the premise that traffic deaths are preventable.

Nationwide, Nashville is 24th in traffic deaths per 100,000 residents (14.5). This is higher than peer cities of Austin, Texas (9.3), Charlotte, North Carolina (8.2), and Denver (8.4) — cities that are already participating in Vision Zero.

Last month a draft action plan was revealed.

The plan showed 60% of deaths or serious injuries for pedestrians happened on 2% of Nashville’s streets. Across the city, 6% of streets accounted for 59% of fatal and serious injuries of all types. These streets make up the High Injury Network.

These are common percentages across the country in Vision Zero cities, said Leah Shahum, founder of Vision Zero Network.

The plan also highlighted vulnerable areas based on transportation users, carless households, poverty levels, renters and people of color.

Over 50% of the High Injury Network — streets like Nolensville Pike, Charlotte Avenue, Murfreesboro Pike, Old Hickory Boulevard and Dickerson Pike — is in vulnerable areas. These vulnerable areas also hold 90% of the high injury intersections.

The draft plan has 12 action steps for this year. Most of the steps involve creating policies, teams, concepts and processes. Only one step involves building something — piloting a quick build test project.

Lindsey Ganson from Walk Bike Nashville is on Nashville’s Vision Zero task force. She talked about the importance of having good road engineering rather than just enforcement and education for traffic safety.

To Ganson, the need for a police officer on a road should signal that there’s a design flaw in the roadway.

“We need to have the road engineered in such a way that if somebody makes a mistake, that mistake doesn’t result in somebody dying,” she said.

Ganson pointed out that narrowing the width of travel lanes would be an easy step to design in this way. She also said adding more lighting, making crosswalks more visible and changing signal timing were ways to improve the streets.

Ganson said Nashville is playing catchup to its sister cities for a variety of reasons, including creating a Department of Transportation only seven months ago and having to work with new developments on projects.

However, Ganson said there could be vast improvements quickly, especially by concentrating efforts on the most dangerous streets.

“We don’t have to accept 38 people killed while walking our streets,” she said. “We shouldn’t wait another year to do these things.”

Metro Council member Freddie O’Connell, also a member of the Vision Zero task force, echoed Ganson’s thoughts. He said he was surprised by how little action and policy there was in the early versions of the Vision Zero action plan. There has yet to be a goal date announced for having traffic fatalities at zero.

“I think Nashville’s infrastructure scenario is so systemically behind and systemically unable to deliver on quick builds that I would be reluctant to even try to put a date on it,” he said. “We may be Vision Zero 2040 unless we really aggressively change the way we approach infrastructure.”

O’Connell pointed out that it took six years to get a sidewalk completed in his district. (He added that the project was complicated due to several factors.)

“If we were really intent on delivering that, it seems like you could find a way to quick build that,” he said.

O’Connell said a lack of leadership wanting to tackle the issue aggressively, including three mayors in three years, is what has put Nashville behind.

He also said the city has traditionally catered to Nashvillians who want to drive anywhere in 15 minutes and park right up front.

Within the next two months, the Nashville Department of Transportation will release a five-year list of action items, department spokesperson Cortnye Stone said.

“We know the goal of Vision Zero (zero preventable roadway deaths and serious injuries) is quite ambitious, but it’s certainly worth working toward, as we understand that one lost life is one too many,” she said.

In Bellevue, Robison is back on his bike, although it took him several months before he felt comfortable.

“At some point you can’t live in constant fear,” he said.

He said he thinks more lighting and a lower speed limit (it’s currently 40 mph) are some easy ways to make his section of Old Harding Pike safer without waiting for redevelopment to widen the road.

“I just don’t know if it’s a big priority,” he said. “It doesn’t seem like it is.”

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