The Journey to Complete Streets on Dickerson
Nashville partners with State and national organizations to take steps toward safety.By Eric Hoke, Design Director
9 min read About the Smart Growth America Complete Streets Leadership Academy and the Nashville Team’s implementation project on Dickerson Pike.
Dickerson Road is one of Nashville’s most dangerous corridors. In 2020, more pedestrians died on Dickerson than on any other street. This prompted the Civic Design Center and Walk Bike Nashville to partner on an application for a grant from the Tennessee Department Of Health to enhance safety on a 1.7-mile segment of Dickerson (Trinity to Ewing/Broadmoor).
Image showing pedestrian activity in the focus area
Notes from volunteers public life study
Intersection Intervention idea
Our organizations embarked on a multi-year process to study this segment of Dickerson with practically no sidewalks or bike lanes, and minimal infrastructure to support the high-ridership bus route that runs along the corridor. The process consisted of many walks with neighbors, establishing a steering committee with local stakeholders, working with The Nashville Youth Design Team to install a tactical urbanism intervention at a dangerous crossing, and working with engineers to make recommendations for safety improvements. All this was the precursor to the selection of our site for Smart Growth America’s Complete Street Leadership Academy.
Image of the Nashville Youth Design Team mixing paint for their installation on Dickerson.
Image of the Nashville Youth Design Team installing bulb-outs to shorten crossing distances on Dickerson.
Participation in the Complete Streets Leadership Academy
Complete Streets Leadership Academies (CSLA) are several-month technical assistance programs designed to help cities within the state work together to make streets safer. Through a series of virtual and in-person workshops over several months, the state and localities will learn about Complete Streets implementation and identify policy barriers and strategies for cross-jurisdictional coordination, all while planning and implementing “quick-build” temporary street safety demonstration. Teams comprised of the chosen cities’ partner groups receive a sub-award of $10,000 directly from SGA for materials for their demonstration project. NDOT is Nashville’s team lead. This technical assistance is provided through a partnership between SGA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The groups that made up the Nashville Team were TDOT, NDOT, GNRC, Tennessee Department of Health, Metro Public Health Department, Walk Bike Nashville, and the Civic Design Center.
Graphic from SGA showing US map of states participating in CSLA
Tennessee was one of three states selected to have its own Complete Streets Leadership Academy program. Academies include participation from the state department of transportation, the state health department, and multidisciplinary teams from three local jurisdictions in Memphis, Chattanooga, and Nashville.
Images from the interstate collaboration workshop
The Tennessee Complete Street Leadership Cohort converged in Memphis to discuss the three cities’ projects. The groups got a chance to discuss each other’s sites and provide feedback to refine designs. After reviewing, we embarked on a bus trip where we visited the Memphis intervention site and conducted a walk audit.
Images from the Memphis bus tour
Similar conditions were found at the Memphis Walk Audit as at Dickerson Pike in Nashville. There were active businesses, consistent pedestrian and cyclist activity, minimal curb management, and the overall infrastructure favored vehicles traveling through the corridor.
Google Street View of the Memphis proposed mid-block crossing intervention location.
Images from the Memphis Walk Audit
After the workshop, the Nashville team revised design solutions to formalize a proposal for TDOT to implement an intervention at the intersection of Dickerson and Queen Ave.
New Dickerson Pike Intervention Plan
Google Street View of the Nashville intervention location.
The focus site was selected for the Complete Streets Leadership Academy by the Nashville Team for a variety of reasons. One major driver was that TDOT made an announcement to continue the existing work of Walk Bike and the Design Center’s project focusing on the 1.7-mile segment of the street (previously mentioned) that will be completed in 2027. They are undergoing an update that would include street scaping, such as sidewalks, mobility lanes, street trees, and enhanced crossings to the same segment of Dickerson. Our intervention would be a type of tactical urbanism project that could lead to informing the future of the States investment.
Slides from the TDOT announcement to conduct a Complete Street Overall of Dickerson Road.
As part of the previous work leading up to the intervention, Walk Bike Nashville worked with Toole Design to create a Pedestrian Safety Plan for Dickerson with safety concepts for complete street design recommendations.
Cover image of the Dickerson Pike Pedestrian Safety Plan
The following were design recommendations from the chosen site at Queen Ave and Dickerson (page 25):
Relocate the existing crosswalk (located south of Queen Avenue) to approximately 60 feet north of Queen Avenue. The crosswalk should include:
A pedestrian hybrid beacon
A pedestrian refuge island.
Provide a high-visibility crosswalk, centerline markings, and a stop bar across Queen Avenue.
Install missing sidewalks within the functional area of the intersection.
Relocate bus stops to the far side of the crosswalk to discourage pedestrians from crossing in front of buses (not pictured).
Provide a southbound left turn lane immediately south of the proposed pedestrian refuge island to accommodate left turns onto Queen Avenue.
Other Considerations:
The installation of the Pedestrian Hybrid Beacon (Recommendation #1) and the relocation of the bus stops (Recommendation #4) are contingent on the provision of sidewalks within the functional area of the intersection (Recommendation #3).
The location of the Pedestrian Hybrid Beacon will require the closure of the driveway for the property on the northeast corner of Queen Avenue and Dickerson Pike.
This image from Walk Bike Nashville shows high-level concept of pedestrian safety infrastructure recommendations at Dickerson Pike and Queen Avenue/Grizzard Avenue. This preliminary concept is for planning purposes only. Field verification, site condition assessments, engineering analysis, and design are necessary prior to implementing recommendations contained herein.
This was where the Nashville CSLA Team started with design options. While we agreed with the previous designs, we realized through our research that people were mostly crossing south of where the recommendations were pointing to in the Dickerson Pike Pedestrian Safety Plan. The team decided that because this was more of a quick build project we would try to enhance the existing crosswalk between Queen and Grizzard Ave.
Image showing ideas for a design plan for a quick build project focused on enhancing pedestrian experience on one of the most active parts of Dickerson.
The incorporation of art was something that the Nashville CSLA Team decided was important to add to this project. The artist, Charles Key, was brought on to facilitate artistic engagement. Details on this process are emerging, so please stay tuned as it moves forward.
In order to test the ideas presented, the Team is working with NDOT and TDOT to implement a week-long temporary installation to pilot how the longer-term quick-build installation will work. This temporary measure will consist of traffic cones and pavement marking tape.
Image showing ideas for a temporary design plan to inform the quick build on Dickerson.
Dickerson is a deadly road that lacks crossing locations and most of the existing marked crossings are over 60 feet without a place for respite. Our project looks to add a pedestrian refuge island and ADA upgrades to the existing crossing between Queen and Grizzard Ave. The goal with the island is to add a painted area to signal to drivers not to go here. It will be reinforced by a metal guard rail along with plastic vertical delineator posts.
Image showing a model of the pedestrian refuge island idea.
Image showing 16-wheeler turn template radius (generated by TDOT) clearing where the guard rail would begin in our proposed design.
There was concern from our group about the alignment of this crossing and if drivers, especially large vehicles, could make left turns going east on Grizzard moving on to Dickerson. The 3D model shows how the guard rails would only be on the north side of the pedestrian refuge in case a vehicle was to sharply turn over the island, it would only hit the delineator posts. A vehicle would have about 15 feet of a margin of error for a driver to avoid the guard rail. Pedestrians already wait for traffic to part in the turn lanes in the middle of Dickerson. This amenity has been proven to provide more visibility and shorten crossing distances for neighbors crossing the street here.
From Quick Build to Permanent Improvements
Our team is looking to implement a short-term tactical urbanism installation and collect feedback from neighbors and people that live and work in the area by asking folks what their feelings are on this installation in May 2023. We will respond to these community surveys, design, and implement the quick build installation along with artwork by Charles Key in June. We will monitor the longer-term installation and make recommendations for permanent improvements to TDOT as they begin the process for the complete street redesign of Dickerson.
Updates to the Civic Design Center’s Safe Dickerson Project Page will be made as we progress.
Funding for this project came from:
Nashville Complete Streets Leadership Acadamy Partners:
