A few years ago, I was hit by a car while biking in Chattanooga. I was doing everything right. I was in the street, alert, visible, following the rules. It didn’t matter. A driver struck me, and the damage will stay with me for the rest of my life. I live with permanent injury. Still, I bike almost every day, because it is how I get to work, how I stay active, how I stay connected. That is why the changes to Cherokee Boulevard matter so deeply to me. And that is why I cannot stay silent.
In a recent newspaper article, the head of Public Works called the city’s last-minute decision to change the design of Cherokee Boulevard a “first attempt” and an “opportunity.” But what happened on Cherokee is not a new paradigm. And it is not an opportunity. It is a rollback of safety that puts people like me at risk.
Back in February, the city approved a smart redesign of Cherokee Boulevard. The plan reduced the road from four lanes to three, adding a continuous turn lane and freeing up space for bike and pedestrian infrastructure. This type of redesign has been proven to move cars more efficiently than four-lane roads in many cases. It also makes space for people, not just vehicles. We were finally building a safe, direct, multimodal route from Red Bank into downtown Chattanooga. It would have connected cyclists and pedestrians to Coolidge Park, the Walnut Street Bridge, and other beloved public spaces.
Red Bank was working alongside us to make this connection a reality. But then, at the last minute, Chattanooga backed out. Instead of a continuous bike facility, cyclists are now forced to “share the road” with fast-moving traffic for five or so blocks. In other words, the protected route vanishes right where it is needed most.
This is not a small omission. The new design introduces what planners call a “sharrow,” short for shared lane marking. These road markings may look like safety infrastructure, but research has shown that they do not improve safety. In a 2016 study by Wesley Marshall and Nicholas Ferenchak, sharrows were found to be equal to doing nothing. In some cases, they actually increased crash rates. The authors concluded that sharrows offer the appearance of protection without delivering any real benefit.
And that illusion is dangerous. It suggests to cyclists that it is safe to share the road, even when it is not. It suggests to drivers that they do not need to adjust their speed or behavior. It tells people like me to simply accept the risk, while doing nothing to reduce that risk.
Calling this an “opportunity…to learn how to operate together” between cyclists and drivers might sound fair, but it ignores the unequal stakes. A 15-year-old riding their bike to school is not equal to a distracted driver in a 29-foot moving truck. The 40,000 lives lost on U.S. roads every year are not shared equally. I carry the weight of this inequality every time I ride past the spot where I was hit. And every time I ride on a road where the paint is the only thing standing between me and another injury.
The redesign of Cherokee Boulevard fails everyone. When traffic inevitably backs up, drivers will look at an incomplete bike lane and ask what was sacrificed, and why no one’s using it. Cyclists will avoid the route altogether, concerned for their safety or unsure where they are supposed to go. The congestion will not come from the bike lane. It will come from bad design. We know that traffic slows at lane reductions and intersections. By expanding the road in one section and narrowing it again just a few blocks later, the city has created an artificial pinch point that makes driving worse and everyone less safe.
Even worse, the two most vulnerable intersections in the corridor just became more dangerous. Crossings that were once made safer through the original design have now been undone.
This is not the first time our city has walked away from an opportunity to make a street safer. In a past project, outside funding was available to redesign a hazardous road. The city declined. The result was a preventable tragedy that devastated a local family. We should not have to wait for another tragedy to act.
I understand that the head of Public Works comes from a background where systems are predictable. Water flows downhill. Gravity does its job. But streets are not sewers. They are social systems shaped by human behavior. They require a different kind of leadership. Leadership that is focused on safety, and how people actually move and interact.
Jerramy Wood is a capable leader. But maybe it is time that our street design is led by a different department - one that includes planners and transportation experts who understand how to build safer systems for everyone.
Because when I ride my bike, I am not looking for an experiment, or a “first attempt”. I am looking for a way home.
Kody Dahl