Prioritizing pedestrian Safety on Dickerson

Dickerson Pike Pedestrian Safety Action Plan

Study Area:

Our project will focus on Dickerson Pike from Trinity Lane to Ewing Drive, a 1.7 mile segment.

Project Overview:

This project is a collaboration between Walk Bike Nashville and the Civic Design Center made possible with a grant from the Tennessee Department of Health. The project will begin with a community engagement process to understand where those who live and work along this segment of Dickerson Pike need to go, where they need to cross the street, and what barriers they currently face to feeling safe. 

We will gather feedback from those most likely to walk on the corridor, with a focus on transit riders. We will form a steering committee to guide this community engagement process. 

Alongside this community engagement, we will work to deploy tactical urbanism programming -- to engage the community in conversations about long-term changes and also demonstrate some potential short-term improvements. 

We will also hire an engineering firm to design initial schematics with cost estimates for proposed improvements. These plans will be informed by the initial community engagement process and also a round of community engagement that will focus on getting feedback on what the firm produces.

We will then generate a Pedestrian Safety Plan that will be used by the City of Nashville to pursue federal and state grant funding for projects.

Nashville Youth Design Team and Tactical Urbanism Work

The Community Resources Committee from the Nashville Youth Design Team has created a proposal for a Glow in the Dark Crosswalk on Dickerson Pike and Hart Lane. Materials: LED lights, glow in the dark paint, pavement tape, beach ball, and more

They analyzed Nashville’s need for accessible resources. Through their research, they found that pedestrian safety is a big problem in Nashville that should be addressed. See their proposal:

Scope of Work for Planning/Engineering Firm

Components of the Pedestrian Safety Plan

• Gap assessment & crash analysis 

• Review of previous planning efforts in the area

• Incorporation of community input and survey results

• Identification of the highest priority interventions 

• Field visits

• Conceptual designs & cost estimates for the highest priority interventions

• List of potential funding sources

• Prioritization of next steps along the corridor

• Budget: $53,000

Where are we now?

Updated 10/5/2021: Walk Bike Nashville and Civic Design Center will host a series of Walk Audits on Dickerson Pike to talk a look at issues in the focus area. We are also working with Design Your Neighborhood’s Nashville Youth Design Team to create tactical urbanism installations in the study area that could inform the engineering examples.

Get Involved in Visioning

Every successful plan requires careful listening, robust community engagement, and coordination with stakeholders. Check out the Civic Design Center’s upcoming engagement opportunities.