Streetscapes as Canvas: Memphis' Artistic Mobility Playbook

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Certification Maintenance


CM | 0.75

Course Details

Streets are the most valuable and largest public asset in our communities. They must be safe and well-connected for vehicles, but they should also be inviting and accessible places for gathering, play, and enjoyment. This session will tell the story of how the City of Memphis, partnering agencies, and local creatives are implementing traffic safety projects with an artistic twist. Planners attending this session will learn about the characteristics of streets in Memphis that have ranked it as one of the most dangerous places for pedestrians — and enable them to see/identify those same conditions in their community. Recognizing these dangerous characteristics is foundational to changing them.

During this course, solutions related to cross-department collaboration, equitable community engagement, mobility best practices, and pilot project deployment will be described as case studies. Successes and lessons learned from the work in Memphis can be taken back to local communities looking for new ideas. Most importantly, this course will emphasize that we must TRY something because doing nothing cannot be an option.

Learning Outcomes

  • Evaluate local practices for mobility and safety to determine if an interim design solution (not an end in itself) could be appropriate.
  • Initiate conversations and ask valuable questions about integrating art — asphalt art specifically — into transportation projects.
  • See their local communities with fresh eyes and be able to identify locations/projects ready for mobility changes and public art installation.