Why Are Memphis Streets So Dangerous?

0:00Hi everybody, welcome to another episode of the Bottom-Up Revolution Podcast. I'm your host Tiffany Owens. If you've been around the Strong Counts conversation, then you know that one of the most important questions we ask is, what's the cost? What's the cost of the way that we have been designing and planning our cities in this country for the past 100 years or so? But when we talk about costs, we don't just talk about the financial costs of how we're building our cities. We also talk about the personal costs and the human impact. Our guest today is going to speak to that on a very personal level. I'm joined by Sheridan Harris. She is a Memphis-based mom and pedestrian safety advocate who has first seen experience with roadway violence after a hit and run crash in 2023. She's now turning that experience into the basis for advocating for increased safety for pedestrians and bikers in her city. And I am honored that she is joining us on the show today to share her story and her work to Sheridan.

1:00Welcome to the Bottom-Up Revolution Podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here today. We have a little bit in common in terms of the city where you live. My dad is from Memphis and I lived there a little bit in elementary, my elementary school years. I haven't been back for a while. How do you like to describe Memphis and what would you say makes you feel like home to you? So I'm not a native mintian but I moved here for college in 2010 and I'm an alum of University in Memphis. So go Tigers. I think Memphis is really a big small town. Memphis Shelby County has about a million residents but it's really common to see people you know and get caught up in conversation. So even though it feels like there's a lot of people, it also feels like everybody knows everybody. And I really like that homey feeling and also just feeling like you're embraced no matter where you go. I think people maybe when they hear Memphis I think of the typical blues music, I was

2:04pressed for the barbecue with Pyramid. And I know those are all fun things to think about but what people may not know is perhaps some more tragic reality is that Memphis is known as one of the most dangerous cities in our country for pedestrians. For someone who lives in Memphis, what do you think contributes to this reality? What do you think is the story here? Well first of all as you travel around Memphis you see that it's very car centric. It was designed for cars not for people. You observe a lot of broken sidewalks, you observe a lot of faded paint or lights that are broken, things that would keep people safer. But mainly you see a lot of lanes and a lot of different corridors of Memphis. Those main intersections are places where lots of people travel by bike or by foot or

3:05rolling somehow. It could be four to seven lanes sometimes and it's really stuck in the past. It hasn't been updated and there's not a lot of places for pedestrians to cross unfortunately. And a lot of those issues happen in intersections like that. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned lanes because one of my memories of Memphis just as usually when I think of it, I think of those very wide lanes and like those corridors. So there's like three or four of them. I don't know why that's the image stuck in my head but it's a very prominent one when I think about the layout and just the feel of Memphis as a city. So you're a part of a small group of people raising attention. Maybe a large group of actions. I don't know why I put the word small there. Part of a contingent of residents raising attention about the safety issue and pushing for change. We're going to talk about your story a little bit but how do you find the conversation around pedestrian safety unfolds in Memphis?

4:08What do you find? Do you find that there's a particular way of talking about pedestrian safety that resonates with people more? I think that people, especially people that have lived here for some time are tired of being ignored. A lot of them have brought up redesigns in certain neighborhoods or intersections or they requested lights or stop signs and I don't know if you are familiar with the Spider-Man meme or everybody's pointing to a different Spider-Man but that's basically what it is. This is the city's fault. This is the state's fault. This is someone else's fault. So you see a lot of blame being placed on different people but no action. And so I just really think that there is a big need for people to get upset and get together and take action and we are seeing the wheels actually turning in Memphis after

5:12a very long time in a lot of conversations that don't feel like they've gone anywhere. How much of the conversation around transportation and pedestrian safety in Memphis do you think has to do with the reality that Memphis is also, like there are a lot of poor people in Memphis because that's kind of my other impression of Memphis that there are pockets of Memphis that are very wealthy and then there's also really serious levels of poverty there as well. How do you think that plays into this conversation? I have my theory but I'm just curious how you would explain that. Well first I think it's important to note that Memphis specifically is not proud of some of its history and I think we struggle with some of the things that we are negatively associated with especially around the unhoused community or around racial tension, things like that. We want a lot of us want to make a change and want to make amends but there are a certain

6:15number of people that are kind of stuck in the past that don't want to see change. They like the way things are and I think that you just see that history repeats itself. We're still fighting about the same things today that Martin Luther King came and ultimately lost his life here fighting for. If you do a lot of side by side comparison there's not a lot of progress in some ways that's been made and that's really unfortunate. Yeah, so I'll tell you my theory. I have a theory that places like Memphis may be more sunbelt southern cities. I have a theory that like the car was such a symbol of wealth that it's really difficult to reconsider the entire ecosystem of transportation in general. And so I wonder if like talking about walkability and bikeability doesn't feel like a conversation around transportation feels like a conversation about success. Like are we a successful southern city and I think for whatever reason I think of Cadillac

7:19when I think of Memphis or like I don't know if that's a thing but I just feel like you know your typical like successful if you're in the south I mean I think having a car and a nice car is a big status symbol and so it makes sense that it would just feel and maybe this is the case in other cities. I mean in Texas it could be like the pickup track you know like a sign of success is having like nine tracks parked in your front yard that's what they're going for. But like I said I haven't been in Memphis or lived there for a long time but I guess that's just like one of my memories of like it had a uniquely southern like association with certain kinds of cars and like cruising culture as like this is part of what it means to be like what we've made you know we're successful now and I can see how talking about busing biking walking would be like a head scratcher if your culture is baked and like you know getting the nice Cadillac and cruising around and what would you add to that? Am I wrong?

8:19Am I right? How far off the target am I? I think that is correct I think that cars were a status symbol at some point but along the way we stopped investing in the infrastructure and public transportation that people needed to live without one and one of the things that I noticed riding around I was actually noticing this earlier as I drove across town to a meeting. You see a lot of cars that are not even in good working condition things are dragging they're when shilled as busted out the car smashed in half but they feel like that is the only option is to drive that car because our public transportation here in Memphis is in such disarray that they would lose their job their kids may not make it to school all of these other consequences that people of a wealthier status may never consider. Yeah well that's what I was thinking about that as well when we were talking about the poverty because I think I mean do you is that is part of the challenge to just not having

9:24the resources to invest in these types of things like as this because I know there's you know there are poor people in Memphis has a serious you know a large poor population maybe might be using the right words there but it's part of that reflected in like the city itself just not having the revenue or the tax base she makes areas investments in public transportation and infrastructure experience talking about things like lights not working I wonder how much of this is also like a bigger conversation just about the financial well being of Memphis as a whole. I do think there are very serious problems financially here you see the evidence of that even in the investments of light things that are third spaces for example that are not even in good condition anymore because things are continually getting cut people are moving out of the city and so when I said earlier a million residents that includes the entire county that is an

10:26include Memphis proper people continue to move out of Memphis because of all of these different things that we're naming that you know they don't want to deal with or be a part of we also have a lot of people that commute into the city that do not pay taxes they live somewhere else in come to FedEx or St. Jude or wherever to work and they don't want to live here but they're using our roadways there you know taking advantage of the city culture during the day and then leaving without really making an investment and I think that's a real big issue as well. Yeah it's interesting just as you were saying that I just this idea kind of clicked in my head how you know many cities in the US decades ago really invested in this vision of what I call the auto topia right like everyone getting it but it's almost like nobody stopped to think like wait what if someone can't have one of these you know and it's and I don't know how it happens but it's almost as if like the idea of someone not having a car just kind of gets deleted from the

11:28car brain where it's like we're going you know this is the way to get around them and now we have completely lost the ability to envision life without one therefore there must not exist a single person who doesn't have one and then you know because I'm still wrestling with I'm like how does the city end up to be that dangerous for pedestrians there must be a lot of people still walking and getting around without a car and that scenario just seems to still not light up as like an actual legitimate reality for so many people as but and you know so when you're talking I can I can imagine when you know cities at large are talking about investments and all of that I don't know maybe just the the carless resident just does it doesn't pop into their brain I'm not I don't I don't know but it seems quite complex you know it's all connected if you have people moving out and just commuting in have you ever looked at a map of how spread out Memphis like Shelby County is not in a while now okay that's another interesting thing because even if like the city center had

12:31good transportation there's so many things that have moved to the outskirts of town and people have continued to push out we're like there are people that are 45 minutes to an hour outside of downtown Memphis and when you think about people that have doctors appointments or they may see certain specialists or have jobs in a different part of the city which is pretty common that doesn't even necessarily guarantee that fixing the bus system in the middle of the city is going to help that problem we would have to expand it out as well yeah wow okay well let's talk about your story a little bit um so you're advocating we're gonna talk about what you're advocating for in a bit but I would love to just share a bit of your personal experience because we're talking about pedestrian you know Memphis being a dangerous city one of the most dangerous for pedestrians and people just let's just say uncard people not in cars and um you know you experiences while riding your bike you were hit and nearly lost your life at a hit and run

13:35so tell us the story um tell us about this incident and then we'll talk a little bit more about how this is affected you personally and also how this informs the work that you're doing now um so I was not riding out of necessity on my bike I was riding for fun which is something I've enjoyed doing um since I was a kid I grew up in a very rural part of West Tennessee where I could ride my bike there wasn't a lot of cars and so it's a different type of uh environment that you know coming into the city and biking in a city street um I did this often I was actually training for a triathlon I was super active and um people may not have known my name but they recognize my bike and my helmet by me riding the same route all the time and we have a green line that goes through the middle of the city here and that was my route from my house I would take a few streets and get on at one of the

14:35the crossings and head out into um it's it's a it's a park it's a big green space that's on the outskirts of like the city center um and so in there you're protected but as you're crossing through there there's lots of different crossings where there's pedestrian lights and cars that you're gonna encounter I'd never had a problem I'd never had a close call um as I was biking that day um I came up to an intersection there was a person in front of me and meeting me so I was not the only person in the intersection but at this particular intersection it's at Graham Street if anyone would like to look this up on a map um there is a light that gets cars to stop after you hit the pedestrian light to cross but the sign that the person has that's looking at the light and driving the car is not the same as how many seconds there is counting down on the pedestrian

15:41sign so for example it starts flashing and then it's a solid light and then it starts flashing again and then it turns off but when it starts to flash the second time there's still time left on the pedestrian countdown on the button and so what happened was um when that changed that person took that as it's not a solid light I can go and they ran the light and they ran over me um they weren't going really fast we think going about 20 miles an hour but they sides wet me from the left side and they knocked me off of my bike and the bike went under the car thankfully I was not clipped in because I had a brand new bike and I was getting used to it and that saved my life because I was not pulled underneath the car with the bike and then the bike was thrown back out at me and the

16:41car kept going okay so um first thing I want to say is we have a similar light in wake up I know I've never encountered another light it's new it's a new like it's one of our newest intersections so um I mean well first of all I am just that has to be terrifying I am so sorry that happened to you I can't yeah that when you say like you know just those little things how if you hadn't been clipped in you know you could have lost your life it's just so that's so crazy to imagine so yes after talking to you before we've recorded I I was thinking about this light and I actually drove it over the weekend so there's a bridge that takes you from East Waco to downtown it's a pedestrian bridge um so there are like two or three bridges in Waco across the browser's river one is open to cars and pedestrians one is just pedestrian one is closed entirely um so this is a new pedestrian bridge and it has an intersection for cars like but it

17:41so so people come from like the farmers market plaza and they want to cross the street traffic and they want to get to that pedestrian bridge but instead of making it and I think the reason why is because it's so close to a normal intersection that they decided to make it like a conditional intersection right and so you'll see the sign that says if you see pedestrians and the crosswalk that means then the light is flashing that yeah you have to sit there and read it and you're like what are the instructions for this flash because it's like basically only stop if the light is solid if the light is flashing and you don't it basically functions like a stop sign maybe like I don't know if it's like you hold it if it yeah I hold it if it's a stop yeah um but I guess it's sort of like if it's flashing that means look for pedestrians before proceeding I think that's the rule um and then obviously if nothing is happening you just don't stop it all you just keep going so I haven't done I haven't compared like what the pedestrians see is to what the driver sees but yeah I was one of those drivers who had to stop because someone was waiting

18:43to cross but it was very confusing like it just yeah ambiguous unclear signaling uh almost cost you your life so there are there are more parts to your story so there's a medical part of the story and then there's the advocacy part of your stories but this driver was never caught right the driver was never caught um I was taken by ambulance to a local hospital the police that arrived on scene came on to the ambulance as they were cutting my clothes off of me and said we're going to catch this guy and that is something that has stuck out with me forever and ever and I will never forget it because they have no intention of catching this person even for me to get my police report to file with my insurance to let them know that this was not my fault um we had to beg them and stand outside of the police department and wait just to get it and it was such a terrible interaction they were so rude to us and here I am like beat up from being run over and just asking for a police

19:48report they acted as if this was you know some horrible thing that I've done and and the blame felt like it was on me already even in the very beginning and not on the person that committed the crime sorry so they put you in the ambulance get you to the hospital and now I want you to I mean like what has been the cost of this accident on you like thank god your life was spared but there still has been serious medical and I'm just like physical impact on you and your family can you share about that? Thankfully I have good insurance that's been able to help me and I would say without insurance it would easily be $800,000 $2 million in medical bills and you have to think this has stretched over a three or period of time I'm still finding injuries and still having to go through different surgeries and things today because trauma sometimes it doesn't present itself immediately

20:52and so there are still things that are being discovered that you know we're overlooked or weren't the most important thing to address at that time but overall I have a spinal cord stimulator because I have nerve damage from my mid spine all the way down my right leg and that just helps to control the pain I've had several nerves that have been carterized because they were so damaged that they would they would never be able to be repaired but my body continued to try to repair them so there's some different nerve surgeries that I went through to try to repair that I lost here some of my hearing in my right ear I have had a shoulder surgery that reconstructed my left shoulder where the car ran over me and I tore that mirror off with my with my shoulder so

21:55the mirror flew out into the road that's how hard it hit me in the shoulder and PTSD just the mental aspect of it and how it's you know taken hold of me and what I've had to go through from a mental health perspective has been a lot as well yeah I can only imagine and you're still dealing with pain like you live with chronic pain now I live with chronic pain and I now have a really great team of doctors that are seeing me and helping me but initially that wasn't the case I waited 10 months to see a nerve specialist so that is just the reality of things here we have good medical teams but there's so many people that come from all around this area to see them that the weights are often very long what has been like for your family you're a mom to two little boys correct correct I have a second grader and a sixth grader and my husband Robert also and

23:02then we have two dogs it's it's been a lot it's taught my boys specifically how to look at the world in a different way they are so willing to meet people where they are because of this experience and they know that things can change day to day and your abilities may not always be the same and that is a gift that's come out of this but they've been forced to handle a lot of adult situations at a very young age that you know I left on a bike ride and almost didn't come back and they're aware of that and it's something that people talk about constantly in front of them um it's affected the way that I'm peering in the way that I can't be as physically active or present as I sometimes want to be I have to walk with the device sometimes like a cane um I also you know sometimes are in but I'm in bed with chronic pain I I can't get up um and so

24:07those days thankfully are more in control now because I have a great team of doctors but um you know all those things have changed their childhood for sure what is your outlook at this point what are your what's your team hoping for like what's the goal for you from a medical perspective my goal is to be able to get on my bike at least to do um for example like critical mass events things that bring attention to the need for better infrastructure for um cyclists and pedestrians in Memphis because right now I'm not even able to do that um in the next year I will most likely be having a hip surgery which really came out of nowhere that's one of the injuries that was missed um so I'm hoping after that I can do rehab on my lower body specifically and get up to maybe like seven to eight miles on my bike and I would be really happy for that and feel very very accomplished because that is not

25:10been possible so far that must be so hard for you because like you said my team was a huge part of your life since you were a little child and it's something that brought you a lot of joy yeah it's definitely a coping skill that I really miss um but talking about it and helping other people develop their um athleticism and using those things as a positive outlet for them uh has helped me and so that's how I try to channel that energy is to to invest that into other people specifically youth yeah so have um have there been any interventions at that light since your accident any improvements there have been zero interventions at that light um I've actually never even been recognized by anyone in an official capacity with the exception of my city councilman um his name is Phillips Benosa he represents district five in Memphis and he lives near this intersection

26:13and he has personally attended events and talked with me but he has been the only person who's really ever from an official capacity ever even said yes this needs to be changed um I will do what I can to try to help you um there is a plan in place I've heard but there's no press release through grants and things that we've gotten recently but it's on like a three-year track and we are tracking in the wrong direction so think about in three years where we could be if we put it off for that long um because this is a problem for more than just me yeah you're working alongside some other advocates there in Memphis I know we both know Kelsey Hughes I've had her on the show before you all are doing a project to improve safety along the green line can you share about that project and what you're hoping to accomplish yes uh Kelsey is a great friend she's been such a good support person for me and um she is working with me uh on something called

27:19migraine line project we are trying to bring attention to the intersections in Memphis specifically connected to the green line that need better visibility better signage whatever needs to happen and we are trying to get personal stories to bring to um the city to help them see that this is a real life issue that's really interesting what what's been the response so far how are you all collecting your stories we are um collecting them some of it's been three petitions like we've we've given them an ask of okay we want you to sign this petition to change this area and then we ask for more information some people don't give it but some people are very detailed and say this happened to me on this date and this is exactly what I experienced um we are still trying to figure out the best way to present this information but I think it's important that we understand this is a widespread issue in Memphis and we are putting faces behind the statistics that people name all of the time

28:24and helping people understand these are real families that are being affected by these issues before your accident I'm just curious what's the what's the overlap between your concern about pedestrian safety and advocacy and this and this incident that happened to you was this incident sort of like the the spark to this work or were you already starting to think about these topics ahead of time um how do you describe that I would say I'd already started to think about it in Memphis there was a lot of talk about six months before that a young school teacher was abducted and killed named Eliza Fletcher um it was probably it was less than two miles from the side of where I was hit and it felt like women were trying to take back their lives to do something for themselves and there were people that were trying so hard to take that away from them and I started to feel this catalyst in Memphis especially women that were tired of feeling like

29:32they couldn't exercise they couldn't get outside and move freely and I think that's really what made me start to think about all of these issues yeah because I've heard several unfortunately I have heard several stories like that in Memphis where the crime directed at women young women out doing something by themselves running Vikings of like that um and that is really scary that's extremely scary um what was what was it like for you I'm just curious I love to hear people describe sort of the moment that they started to look at their city differently um whether that's oh a lot of people are like oh yeah I found a not just bikes video or I found a strong towns article I found this and suddenly started to click when did it click for you like when you were starting to think about these issues and did it change how you saw Memphis did it change how you saw your city I love my city I am always going to be a cheerleader from Memphis and I think Memphis will love you

30:34if you want to love it you know that's that's always been what I've told people um I know we get a bad rap a lot of times but I have always loved Memphis and I've never blamed the city I think this is just one small part of a really great place um and so I think for the advocacy piece what it clicked for me when I realized I could use my story to even just um bring awareness to resources only I was like what kind of resources did I need when I was in this position how could I let other people know these things are available and that was really where it started for me so you're using your story and some other ways I know that you and Kelsey about to speak at a conference soon can you talk about that yes um bike walk Tennessee is a nonprofit um they're based in middle Tennessee but we as mymphians are not represented I joined their newsletter and

31:38um started trying to follow them about 18 months ago and realized it never named West Tennessee one time it was non-existent um and from everything that I can gather it just seems that um Memphis did not want to work with the other metro cities in Tennessee to try to come up with improvements and I do think that our issues are different but we can look at Nashville Knoxville um Murphy's borough and we can use that as a blueprint for change for us um and if we can get together and try to talk about these experiences I think we can make a change in Memphis but specifically Kelsey and I are presenting on collective action and how we found that in an unofficial capacity we've been able to make a lot of change and drum up a lot of interest and support with everyday people and we don't have a budget we're really just using our voices social media um tabling at events

32:44that people a lot of times they don't even ask for a fee we're just asking to get out and tell people these are ways that you can make a change can you tell me an example of like what are some specific asks or like invitations that you're asking people to think about? We ask for very small actionable steps as small as we possibly can um right now some of them are just petitions for example we have a sustainability event coming up at University of Memphis and we're going to ask those people to give us mobility um opinions like what how do you feel traveling on campus? You have to walk or ride a bike or a scooter if you bring a car like what is the parking situation like what are some of your frustrations? What are places that could be safer? Because no one is asking these questions and we found that a lot of times those entities notice when the conversation starts up and they think

33:47okay people do care about this they do want it to be safer these are things that we have not noticed and it's really from professors students everyone on the campus it's not just a particular um area I guess of the campus and these are longstanding issues that have been there since I was there that have not been improved. Who sounds like a big part of your work is collecting people's stories but also just like having conversations to maybe help people start to see the connection for themselves you know between the way a place is designed and their experience um as a pedestrian or as a non-driver like outside of a car. Yeah the majority of people aren't mad at Memphis they won't they love their city and I think that is very fascinating even though they're they're frustrated they want to be here and they want to know what they can do to make it better for themselves and their fellow man. Yeah they're also working to help um to work with parents specifically if

34:52I recall correctly to help them overcome their fear of letting their children ride their bike. Can you share about that work? Yeah one of my biggest pet peeves has been school zones because they involve a lot of times children walking independently sometimes off of a bus a car maybe down the sidewalk and I think that the level of independence that children are given today is diminishing because we feel it's unsafe specifically when you hear these pedestrian issues that we have in Memphis it doesn't necessarily make you motivated to let your kid out to ride their bike or walk or whatever by themselves. So I am providing tools to people just to show them that you can be safer um you can walk with them and show them everything to do and it may not prevent something from happening but it's not worth taking that experience away

35:58from them. We can't live in fear that something bad is going to happen to our children all the time that takes away from their childhood and I think that there's like a fine line that you have to walk and if you can help people walk that line and really be in the trenches with them and try to relate from yes you can be scared but at the same time you can also understand that this is a vital part of your childhood. Do you or a children bike? They do we walk to school or bike every single day we are actually known as the walking family in their school and when I'm in a car people like this morning and I say oh my gosh you're in a car I didn't even notice who you were and that makes me proud because it's what I want to people to think about that that isn't always the best option or the easiest option that sometimes walking or biking is actually easier in saves time. Yeah Sheridan it's been really um inspiring to hear your story and I'm just

37:03really honored you would take the time to share it with us. In closing can you share about some of your favorite local businesses you like to recommend people check out if they come to visit them in this? Sure I would love to. My all-time favorite place to recommend is novel booksellers. It is an independently owned bookstore that has a wonderful restaurant inside of it called Libro. It's a great place to grab a drink they have handmade pasta you can grab a book have a quiet little dinner or date it's also super kid friendly. I also love the broad street area it's a big art scene. I have to shout out Muddy's bake shop it's delicious and I also love Whitney Winkler art and Blue Swade Vintage over in that area so that's another place I love to recommend. Very nice thank you. All right um Sheridan again thank you and um yeah I just

38:03I look forward to following you know more of your story, more of your work. I'm sure you're only just not getting started but um thank you for sharing your story with us and with our audience. Thank you for having me today. To our listeners thank you for joining me for another episode. I'll be back soon with another conversation. I don't forget to let me know if someone in your community who you think I should have on the show you can let me know about them using this suggested guest form and show notes. I'll be back soon with another conversation in the meantime keep doing what you care to build a strong town. This episode was produced by Strong Towns, a non-profit movement for building financially resilient communities. If what you heard today matters to you deep in your connection by becoming a Strong Towns member at Strong Towns.org slash membership.