Having the opportunity to be outside a vehicle is an element that citizens have shared as part of their vision for the future according to recent community assessment research completed by the City of Franklin. This includes having sidewalks for walking and bike paths. Bike Walk Franklin is a non-profit, that is a local committee tied to a larger organization, Bike Walk Tennessee, with a mission to ensure that there are biking, walking and mass-transit transportation options.
Bike Walk Franklin provides education, events, advocacy and services to champion a healthy biking and walking community. They have sister committees in Nashville, Cleveland, Chattanooga, Memphis, Knoxville and Brentwood.
One of their largest programs is Walk, Bike and Roll to School, which they do every spring and fall. It is part of a national campaign that takes place every year in May and October to encourage kids to walk, bike or roll their wheelchairs to school.
“Older adults remember a time when walking or biking to school was the norm,” said Ned Dannenberg, President of Bike Walk Franklin. “That has really changed over the last few decades in our communities because schools are often built at the edge of town where land is cheaper…and [they] are not connected to neighborhoods. But we have been really fortunate that the Franklin Special School District [have] their elementary and middle schools embedded in neighborhoods so they are great partners in letting us work with them, like Johnson Elementary and Franklin Elementary,…over the past two years.”
In May of 2023, Bike Walk Franklin worked with Johnson Elementary to coordinate the celebration of the opening of the new multi-use path along Highway 96, with about 100 students and staff biking, walking or rolling to the school in the morning.
They also coordinate bike parking for city events, like the recent Independence Day Celebrations at Harlinsdale Farm.
“We worked with the Friends of Franklin Parks to open up that option to folks coming to Harlinsdale,” noted Dannenberg. “We had about a dozen folks, including families, use our bike racks and we gave them little flashlights [to attach to their bikes] to make sure they got home safe after dark. We hope to partner with [Friends of Franklin Parks] again next year…and other big events to offer that as an option.”
Residents are loving growing connectivity, and Bike Walk Franklin is working with Connect Franklin, the city’s transportation plan, to help plan bike lanes, walking paths and intermodal transportation as a means of moving from place to place within the city without having to get in the car. These plans are also a part of Envision Franklin, the city’s development and growth plan. Recent research completed by the City of Franklin asked citizens what is most important in planning for the future of the community, and walkability was included in the second most important element, transportation.
“Walking is on the minds of the community, on the minds of engineering, and definitely on the mind of us,” added Dannenberg.
The organization is also helping parents from local developments get sidewalks in certain areas because of the significant increase in traffic, making walking unsafe due to drivers not paying attention and signage not being strong enough to make drivers stop.
“We are going to have to start thinking about other options for getting people around town without having to be in their cars,” noted Dannenberg. “The second part of that is that we need a complete system of facility types that gets people around town and accommodates all ages, skill levels and abilities.”
A network of pedestrian walkways and biking trails is currently proposed as a part of Connect Franklin, but there is a lot of work to do as only a small part of the plans is currently a reality.
There are two projects that are in the process of completion, including the bridge from Harlinsdale Park to Chestnut Bend, and the city is in the early stages of completing a trail from Lewisburg Pike across the railroad tracks to the eastern plain.
To learn more about Bike Walk Franklin activities and programming, like bike safety classes, go to https://www.bikewalktn.org/franklin or https://www.facebook.com/BikeWalkFranklin/.
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