Design Center unveils plans
for East Bank
The City Paper
By Colleen Creamer
September 03, 2002
The Nashville Civic Design Center has designs on the East Bank of the Cumberland
River.
The urban think tank will present proposals for the area at St. Ann's Episcopal
Church this Thursday based on ideas presented by residents and leaders
over the past few months. Some of the new design include trolleys from
downtown to East Nashville and back, and medians and landscaping for the
main thoroughfare, Shelby Avenue. "
The idea of the trolley line is to have a loop that would run very regularly,
every three to five minutes or something like that," said Mark Schimmenti
director of the Nashville Civic Design Center. "One of the big problems
we have right now with public transportation systems in the United States
is that they are trying to act like cars by trying to take people directly
to their homes. They spend 30 minutes zig-zagging around the neighborhood." Schimmenti
said the tentative route for the trolley would be around the Coliseum
using Woodland Street and Shelby Avenue as the east/west route
and 4th Avenue in downtown and 5th Avenue in East Nashville as the north/south
route. He added the East Nashville traffic study, currently being done,
would determine which roads would be used.
Last winter Rediscover East!, the east side's council of neighborhood associations, businesses and churches, asked the center to look at ways of developing the East Bank. Residents had been concerned that the city put more thought and money into designing the downtown side of the new Gateway Bridge than they did for their side of the river. " A lot of people have told me that they would like to see pretty dense urban development there," said Rediscover East! President Hunter Gee. "Thoughts are that it would include mixed use development along the river and would basically be an extension of downtown. It would repair the fabric between downtown and East Nashville."
The area has long been a source of concern for east side residents who want to refurbish what they consider a gateway for tourists coming into Nashville and those going from downtown to other areas east of the city. Gee said the Nashville Civic Design Center results were preliminary and would need consensus and reworking with the help of the community. " We're also waiting for the results of the East Nashville traffic study to begin to sort of pull everything together and come up with a final plan that we can talk to the city about funding," Gee said
One idea the center studied, Schimmenti said, was how cyclists might be able to use both the new Gateway Bridge and the Shelby Pedestrian Bridge. " The problem for the cyclists is how to get to these bridges without crossing a lot of traffic," Schimmenti said. He said that pedestrians, as well, must cross many lanes of traffic and interstate ramps. Solutions included reducing the number of ramps and "curb cuts," places where cars come in and out of businesses. " The whole idea is to help tie East Nashville and the downtown area," Schimmenti said. "Right now there's not a clear path to Shelby, which is somewhat ironic because Shelby is the heart street of that neighborhood." Thursday's meeting, Schimmenti said, would be the beginning of cementing plans for the East Bank.