Many things go into making neighborhoods and towns pedestrian-friendly places that inherently promote a cohesive sense of community. Greenspaces and greenways, traffic control, public safety and an aesthetic environment are preferred pedestrian amenities. But the essential element is always a pedestrian grid built on sidewalks — the core arteries that allow residents to walk safely apart from traffic and go somewhere.
Like many southern areas, the Chattanooga region abandoned sidewalk-building and other community mainstays in the post-World War II era of rapid suburban sprawl into new subdivisions. Sidewalk-building fell away in the rush to embrace the car-culture, just as front porches open to shady, tree-lined streets and passing neighbors gave way to back-yard patios and big-box retail stores set away from streets behind vast, treeless parking lots.
Communities here have struggled to correct those suburban mistakes in recent decades. Neighborhood associations and citizen advocates across the county have urged redevelopment of sidewalks, greenways, parks and better-designed, mixed-use retail frontage as integral parts of their communities.
Citizens have pushed for sidewalks for time-proved reasons. Pedestrian corridors readily available to residents promote outdoor activity, improved health for the mind and body, and stronger neighborhoods. People who get to know their neighborhoods at a walking pace tend to take more interest in their neighbors and in the well-being of their neighborhoods and shopping areas.
Builders of better housing developments have tuned into this welcome cultural shift, anchoring new subdivisions with sidewalks, gas-lights, improved landscaping, greenspaces and mixed-use development. But there continue to be obstacles. General municipal and county land-use rules yet do not require neighborhood sidewalks, mainly because local leaders lack both vision and the courage to take on developers who argue against the modest extra expense.
Obstacles also arise from citizens who fail to understand the value of a systematic sidewalk grid, or who put selfish interests ahead of the common good for their broader communities.
The current tiff in the town of Signal Mountain provides an insightful example. There, the newly elected president of the Signal Mountain Golf and Country Club, Doug Fisher, is objecting to the city’s proposal to build a sidewalk along a stretch of the town’s well-traveled James Boulevard that parallels, in part, the edge of the golf course for about one-half mile.
The new sidewalk would stretch from the Old Town neighborhood north past the golf course, which the town owns, to the town library and beyond to Thrasher school. Linking Old Town’s neighborhood sidewalk grid to the section north of the school would be an immensely useful pedestrian corridor for the half of Signal Mountain that lies west of Taft Highway.
It would provide the middle link to more than two miles of safe access for children walking to school, and to residents seeking long walks to principal parts of the town, including playgrounds, shopping, ball fields, pools and an outdoor theater in addition to the school, library and golf course. The town has long needed this central corridor sidewalk.
The town owns the right-of-way along the golf course that is leased to the private golf club, which it effectively subsidizes with low lease and property tax rates on a substantially under-valued assessment. It could use the few feet of roadside property for a sidewalk regardless of what the club’s 600 members think.
Yet before he has held his first board meeting as club president, Mr. Fisher has mailed a letter to his membership urging them to attend a town council meeting in early February to oppose the sidewalk, which he believes may encroach on club property leased from the city.
Such parochial thinking has held back improvements of civic infrastructure in the affluent town for years. Indeed, Mr. Fisher’s objections disregard a town notice to the golf club in 1998 to move some of its border Leyland Cyprus trees back from the planned path for the sidewalk. The council agreed then to a five-year delay in building the sidewalk.
In fact, the town should go forward with the project without delay. It would significantly benefit the town, help set an example for other municipalities, and remind local citizens that community interests should take precedence over narrow selfish interests. That’s a community building lesson all around.