Council Approves Complete Streets Ordinance For Knoxville, TN

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Complete streets are on their way to becoming a reality for Knoxville, TN. On October 28, 2014, after nearly a year of planning and working to enact a citywide ordinance, champions for safer streets succeeded in getting the city council to approve the new policy!

According to a WBIR.com news report, the new policy requires the city to “consider” alternative modes of transportation on the streets, such as walking, biking, and public transportation, when completing a project. Rather than mandate a “complete street,” the ordinance requires that the city at least consider it.

“The big benefit is that as we change as a city, as millennials move in and as older people may prefer not to drive, we see different types of users using roads,” said Erin Gill, the director of the Office of Sustainability, in the WBIR report. “It’s not always your traditional vehicle drivers. We need those roads to be safe.”

The WBIR report states that although the Knoxville City Council passed a complete street resolution in 2009, the city hadn’t moved forward with making it an ordinance until now.

In December 2013, Bike Walk Knoxville (BWK), received a technical assistance award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the American Heart Association’s Safe Routes to School National Partnership’s Voices for Healthy Kids: Active Places campaign. With these funds the  group set out to develop, enact and implement a Complete Street Ordinance for the City of Knoxville and Knox County.

Through mobilizing the community towards action and raising awareness of the the need for safer streets in Knoxville, as well as the entire state as a whole, BWK succeeded in getting the policy approved by the council. In addition to working to pass this policy, the BMK also hopes to focus on providing underserved neighborhoods and communities of color, with improved access to safe streets.

Read more about this change here.