Wednesday, June 24
Being Good Neighbors
Last week we wrote about using crosswalks from the perspective of a runner or pedestrian. Let's think about this from the other side.
East Nashville has many blind turns where, as a driver, it's almost necessary to ignore everything else while focusing on an opportunity to turn onto another street. There's often a joke that the only people running in East Nashville used to be criminals from the police, or someone pushing a stroller was someone that had stolen it. Times have changed for who are using our streets.
A good example of a blind turn we've seen on many runs is at S16th St and Shelby. A large retaining wall and fence restricts the view onto Shelby from a sloped street, and the cars that approach this are accustomed to getting as close as possible to peak out onto Shelby to get their running shot into the stream of traffic. Many side streets have their sightlines further reduced with onstreet parking that's too close to the intersection, grass bordered sidewalks, and crosswalks distanced far from the traffic lanes.
What might we do to help create a safer atmosphere for the pedestrians? Have you ever seen a pedestrian standing at the crosswalk, wondering why don't they go? Give them that opportunity, which also helps remind the cars behind you that that's what we should be doing. Drive slower in pedestrian trafficked zones; slow the cars behind you.
S16th and Shelby is much better because of the 4-way-Stop now at S17th. There will be one soon at S14th and Shelby. Note the difficult areas where it doesn't seem at all possible to be safe. We can effect similar changes that lets us all be safer.
Route #1
Last week was The Nasty in perhaps the worst possible conditions! This week, the heat will still be around, but we are back to route #1, which is only 3 miles...
