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Anthony presented a plan that will be proposed to the city to change Cooper Street from Central to
Southern. The revised street would have one vehicle lane in each direction instead of two. The space
created by that would allow a bike lane on each side with a buffer area then parallel parking. There is a
possibility Cooper St. could be reworked all the way to Poplar.

The planning is going on now. Once the preliminary designs are done, it will be checked by a traffic
engineer to tweak the places like intersections. Once this is done the plan will be presented to the city
engineer. The C/E has already been contacted and said if the community wants these changes, they can be
done.

A metalsmith in the district has designs for artistic bike racks for the district. The Cooper Young
Community Association will be asking the businesses to contribute to the bike racks that will be placed as
needed. First Congo Church and the community association have each committed to a bike rack each to
get things going.

All of these changes just take paint and a few signs. Estimates to do the work from Southern all the way to
Poplar are in the $50,000 range. While this seems like a lot to you and me, it is peanuts in the grand
scheme of the capital improvements budget. About the same cost as a speed bump or two.

If all this happens, Cooper Young will be the first neighborhood to take back their street and make it as
they want it. The benefits would be reduced speed on the street, more people out and about looking and
shopping. The increased presence of people would reduce crime in the area. The bike lanes also make the
area eligible for a police bike patrol.

An exciting prospect for the C/Y area.

This public meeting was held on Thursday July 10, in the Christian Brothers High School Auditorium.

At the beginning of the meeting the host stated that the original purpose of the meeting was to show the plan to
neighborhood residents and solicit their comments. He apologized to those of us who may have had a different
impression of the meeting's purpose. It was very important to have a large turnout of the cycling community at
this meeting. If there were 12 residents and 10 had objections, it would not have been good. Instead, there
were about 50 or more people there with a majority being cyclists. This showed the city engineering department
that cyclists are behind them in making improvements. A large number of cyclists showed up on their bikes in
spite of the inclement weather. This resulted in a front page picture in the Commercial Appeal.

A short power point presentation went through the history of cycling in Memphis. This included the existing city
bike routes and a discussion of the MPO Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan presented in 2005. The presentation also
showed the "Memphis Green Grate" bicycle friendly grate for storm drain inlets. This grate is currently in testing
and will become the standard storm grate in Memphis and surrounding communities.

Another point in the presentation was about the bicycle practice manual under development for the city. RPM
Traffic Consultants are writing the manual. This is the same organization that prepared the MPO report and the
Walnut Grove corridor study. RPM was very involved in the successful bicycle programs in Nashville and
Chattanooga.

The Memphis Bicycle Design Manual is still being developed but a preliminary view is available at the link at the
end of this article. The manual is based on accepted practice from the AASHTO (American Association of
State Highway and Transportation Officials) and other standard traffic manuals. The manual is also being based
on several successful bicycle programs in six peer cities. These cities are:

Baltimore, Maryland

Denver, Colorado

Charlotte, North Carolina

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Chicago, Illinois

Nashville, Tennessee

These cities were chosen based on their size being similar to Memphis and having successful bicycle facilities
programs. Chicago was chosen even though it is much larger than Memphis because they have a nationally
acknowledged excellent bicycle facilities program.

At the end of the presentation was a question and answer session. Both area residents and cyclists expressed
varying views. A few examples that stand out are:

Q. Will parking be allowed to straddle the bike lane?

A. No. On street parking will be prohibited.

(This could be a sticking point and some compromise could take place. Examples were stated as gatherings at
people's homes and lawn care services.)

Q. A cyclist expressed an opinion that bike lanes were not desirable due to trash collecting on that section of
the street.

A. That is being looked at in the plan and those streets may get additional sweeping. The peer cities review may
have some additional solutions.

Q. What is the time table for this project?

A. Unfortunate circumstances have delayed implementation. The current contract for the glass beads that make
the paint reflective are delayed as the factory is in the earthquake area in China. Delivery is expected in time to
get the bike lanes painted before the winter painting cut off. Some features like the bike symbols in the lane may
have to be done in the spring.

The meeting then moved to the lobby where tables were set up with drawings of the plan on display. The plan is
stripe bike lanes on Shady Grove Rd. from Yates to Humphreys and Brierview St. Bike lanes will be 6 feet
wide (including the gutter pan) on improved sections of Shady Grove. The narrow bridge across 240 will be a
sign shared section as will the unimproved section of road between there and Sweetbriar. Brierview will also
have 6 foot bike lanes. The lanes will end at places not wide enough such as intersections. There, bikes will
merge with vehicle traffic for that short distance.

A companion project is also underway. A grant is applied for to install the section of Wolf River Greenway
between the terminus of Shady Grove at Humphreys to the Wolf River Bridge. The greenway will be
constructed next to the river with connections at Shady Grove and several other locations. The pavement will
go under the Wolf River bridges at Walnut Grove and connect to the multi-use path on the north ramp bridge.
A connection is planned on the east end of the bridge to access the gravel road in Shelby Farms.

This project is part of the plan presented by RPM in their study of possible bicycle facilities the Walnut Grove
corridor. The fact that the city is willing to move forward on this represents a change from their stone wall
resistance to install bike lanes or other facilities. It is a long awaited move forward for the cycling community in
Memphis.

Brad

Link to technical memo that is the Memphis Bicycle Design Manual work in progress. This is a 4.25 Mb file.