Nashville Greenway Endorsement sent February 24, 2022

Dear Metro Nashville Parks and Recreation Board Members,

We are writing today to ask that you endorse the Greenways and Open Space Commission’s recommendation that there be no changes to current e-bike law. 

 

Along with the 15 Council Members who wrote the Board this summer, we also ask that you approve the BCycle request to operate in Metro Parks.  

Since the recent e-bike “study” effort began, Walk Bike Nashville has heard from nearly 100 people about why it is important to them to be able to ride an e-bike on Nashville’s greenways. Attached you’ll find some of the stories we’ve collected from Nashvillians who have found joy, happiness, and better health by riding class 1 and class 2 e-bikes on the greenways. Their stories illustrate that e-bikes are particularly popular with older riders, newer riders, riders concerned about not being sufficiently fit, parents riding with kids, people recovering from illness and injury, and people using bikes for transportation. We’ve learned that e-bikes help more Nashvillians feel comfortable riding bikes, and they expand the types of trips they can take on their bike by helping them go farther.

We believe that any additional study of e-bikes, greenway usage, and bike share, should clarify how Metro classifies greenways for transportation. In NashvilleNext, Plan to Play Master Plan, the WalknBike Strategic Plan and various other written Metro Nashville planning documents, our greenways are considered part of the transportation and bike network. Yet throughout the recent e-bike “study” process representatives from Metro Parks and Greenways for Nashville repeatedly stated that greenways are “linear parks” and seemed to raise questions about the prioritization of greenways in bike network planning.

In addition, there is a case to be made that a number of bike lanes currently classified as greenways should not be classified as greenways. The pedestrian bridge downtown and the greenway segment by Rolling Mill Hill are examples. Classifying these critical pieces of the bike network as greenways makes them subject to rules, regulations and closures that may be appropriate for park facilities but are not appropriate for critical transportation infrastructure. This seemingly abstract concept is a critical policy decision that has very real and immediate implications for how we plan and prioritize the build out of our on-street bike facilities, and is also critical to the East Bank planning effort.

We hope that Metro Nashville prepares for growth by focusing on building a greenway system that puts the users at the center of the design through thoughtful and inclusive planning. Nashvillians deserve a greenway system that works within a robust bike network, designed to accommodate the trips they want to take, the kind of bikes they want to use, and allowing them to get where they want to go by bike safely. Let’s work together to solve the education, design, and infrastructure issues so that our greenways can accommodate the continued innovation in e-bikes and bike share systems. 

Thank you,

Lindsey Ganson

Director of Advocacy & Communications

Walk Bike Nashville

Carey Rogers

Katherine McDonell

Co-Chairs, Walk Bike Nashville’s E-bikes & Greenways Volunteer Committee