The Nashville Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee is developing a master plan and working to make the streets safer for non-motorists.
Priority No. 1 is replacing crosswalk markings that have faded or been removed over the past couple years.
Board members Clifford Cressey and Erika Rudd and council member Anna Hofstetter walked around last week and assessed the crosswalks in town. Rudd evaluated town streets, while Cressey and Hofstetter walked Van Buren/State Road 135. They found about a dozen in need of work, and four of them are at the “four corners” at Jefferson and Main streets.
In the fall of 2019, the four corners’ crosswalks were painted in a colorful leaf motif at a cost of about $4,600, not including the stencil the town purchased. It was primarily a project of the Nashville Arts & Entertainment Commission. The paint on those crosswalks didn’t last, though, and the design wasn’t compliant with crosswalk standards. So for the past few months, the Nashville Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee has been working on another plan.
The committee solicited bids for another decorative crosswalk design and got a quote of up to $80,000 to do all the work needed to make it last, reported Dax Norton, strategic direction adviser to the town. He said that’s “pretty standard” for the type of paint they needed to do the job right, but that’s not in the budget.
Instead, at last week’s council meeting, the council voted to spend up to $5,000 on crosswalk restriping, using the standard “piano keys” design for now in the interest of safety. The money will come from the local road and street fund. The bike-ped committee will get to determine which ones are the most important to be replaced now with that money. In the future, the bike-ped committee and the arts committee will work together to pool ideas and budget for decorative crosswalks that fit with the brand of the community, council member Nancy Crocker put in her motion to approve.
The Nashville Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee was established in late 2019 with its primary purpose being to establish a master plan for non-motorized travel in town. In order to compete for grant money that might be available to do projects of that sort, the town needs a plan for what projects it would do.
Hofstetter said that the board will probably be hiring an outside firm to draft the master plan, but right now they want to prioritize the most immediate and urgent safety issues, then look at longer-term goals.
The committee has been meeting about once a week on Zoom; all meetings are posted in the government calendar and are open to the public.
