A Twitter campaign launched by Bike Walk Nashville is giving people a taste of what it's like to walk the sidewalks of the Music City -- and it's not pretty.
Below are some shots tweeted by local residents using the hashtag #dontblockmywalk that show how Nashville's pedestrian right-of-way gets treated as a dumping ground, loading dock, or construction zone -- with no attempt to compensate people on foot for what's been taken away:
Yet another homemade sidewalk closed sign... #dontblockmywalk @NashvillePW @walkbikenash @brettawithers pic.twitter.com/9564OLDK7I
— Nora Kern (@norakernel) August 27, 2015
The campaign has captured the attention of local news media. Part of the problem seems to be that fines for blocking the sidewalk in Nashville are grievously low. Nashville Public Radio reports that construction firms that block the sidewalk are charged just $55 for five days, and $10 a day after that.
Last year 19 pedestrians were killed in Nashville, said Nora Kern, of Walk Bike Nashville. Those deaths have been concentrated mostly around major arterials, where the construction work that often blocks sidewalks tends to happen.
"In the past five, 10 years, Nashville's been kind of exploding in construction," Kern. "Besides not having a lot of sidewalks, now half the time when we do have sidewalks they're blocked for construction."
