Jackson Mayor Scott Conger’s administration has worked to increase the number of pedestrian spaces in the city and improve the safety of those areas, and because of that, he was recently accepted into a cohort of 10 mayors from across the country to work more on the issue.
The Mayor’s Institute of Pedestrian Safety is the organization that puts this together, and Conger will meet virtually with nine other mayors – including the mayor of Chattanooga – six times for meetings that will last for a few hours.
After those virtual meetings, the work will conclude with a two-day conference in Knoxville to finish up their work.
“It’s something I wanted to be a part of because as we as a city continue to try to improve our pedestrian access to all parts of the city, I’m looking forward to the opportunity to hear other ideas from other mayors in different things they may have done or thought about doing to address pedestrian safety in their cities,” Conger said.
Pedestrian projects the City has or plans to take on include installing sidewalks in areas that don’t have them or need replacement.
This includes state grants that have been approved that will result in sidewalks on North Parkway from the Jackson-Madison County Regional Health Department to the intersection with Campbell Street about a mile away and another set of grants that will result in sidewalks on Main Street and Airways Boulevard all the way to the Bypass.
Conger also plans to have a green space corridor that runs through the city from the south in Bemis all the way north to Middlefork Bottoms at the northern end of the county.
“Walkability is an important issue right now when you’re talking about trying to recruit businesses and people to Jackson,” Conger said. “When people move to a place, they want to be able to get out and move without needing an automobile to do it, and they want to do that safely.
“So we’re already working on that in Jackson, and hopefully this will be an opportunity to improve this work even more.”
Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news
