Building Safer Streets – Together

A panel of local activists and educators joined us for two Active Knox events on May 23 and 24, 2019, to discuss how communities can collaborate on building more walkable, bikeable places.
We heard from Chris Cherry, a professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at UTK, about his work with students and others to add transit benches and create safer street crossings. Tanisha Baker, College & Career Access Team Leader for Project GRAD and president of Five Points Up, spoke about walkability challenges in East Knoxville, including lack of infrastructure and concerns about crime. We also heard from Bryan Hill, a certified community planner and the Vision Zero chair for Bike Walk Knoxville’s Advisory Committee, about how other communities are using Vision Zero to collect and share data about traffic safety with the goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries. The panel shared information with about 40 members of the public on the evening of May 23 at Pellissippi State’s Magnolia Avenue campus. They also appeared before about 30 elected and appointed officials for a lunch at the Knoxville Chamber on May 24. This panel was the 11th set of events in the Active Knox speaker series, which is funded through a grant from the Tennessee Department of Health. The speaker series will resume in the fall of 2019. If you’d like to receive emails about the events, email ellen.zavisca@knoxplanning.org.

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