Capacity crowd at meeting on park woes
At a meeting called to discuss parking and traffic problems, parking, appropriately enough, was a challenge.
Roads through Overton Park were lined with vehicles Feb. 2 as some 250 people filed into the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art for a meeting on the mobility and accessibility issues in the Midtown park.
A tea m of pla nners, architects and engineers hired by the nonprof it conservancy outlined a study they’re conducting to identify solutions to chronic vehicle congestion in the 342-acre park. They also shared results from a n online sur vey of park usage and priorities that some 1, 500 people have filled out since Thursday.
The study deals with not only the controversy over the Memphis Zoo’s use of the Overton greensward for overflow parking, but issues such as safe bicycle a nd pedestria n access to and within the popular park.
Pla nners sa id they’re looking at solutions ranging from dual use of some underutilized or “wasted” space in and around the park to better planning for anticipated peak attendance periods. Any longterm solution, however, will require “trade-offs,” said Steve Auterman, an architect, planner and designer with the firm Looney Ricks Kiss.
“This is an urban park; it’s not growing in the future ...,” he said. “This is a well-loved park — loved so much that we sometimes hurt the park.”
Zoo off icia ls a re not participating in the study, which t hey have sa id won’t solve their parking issues.
A second public meeting is set for 6 p.m. Feb. 18, also at the Brooks.
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Rallings came to The it, I said, “Wow. I did not Commercial Appeal’s ofsee this coming.” ... I think fice Wednesday for his first that we don’t understand podcast interview with Inthe magnitude of that. So forMemphis, discussing a to deploy 1,700 body-worn range of topics including cameras is an enormous what he’s doing to reduce task. It’s not as easy as violent crime, the latest on individuals would think body cameras, and why because there are policy Memphis won’t be the next issues, t here a re data Ferguson, Missouri. storage issues. We know
Below are some highwe’re looking at over $4 lights of the interview, million just for data storwhich you can listen to in age. We also have issues its entirety online under with redaction and qualthe Government tab at ity control. What I want commercialappeal.com. citizens to understand is that the pause — and it’s just a pause — is there to protect the citizens.
Bei ng pro - fessional and courteous — that goes a long way. I think our community, we suffer from some bad manners. We’re not following what mama and grandmother told you to do. Hey, be nice, smile, treat people with respect. So, let’s talk about Ferguson. ... Director (Toney) Armstrong expressed his intent, and we call it in the military the commander’s intent — what is it that the commander wants you to accomplish. It was real simple: We’re going to support a peaceful, lawful protest. One of the things that the director said that just really sticks out in my mind — this is when the “Hands up, don’t shoot” movement was kind of really kicking off ground — and the director said that while you have your hands up, we have our hands out. What that told me was, we’re going to embrace the community. We know
I’m confident that we have some of the smartest people working in city government. I know the mayor’s committed. I won’t speak for the City Council, but I truly believe the City Council is committed to doing some different things to try to garner the support of our officers. ... I tell officers there is hope. These gentlemen (the city’s first class of black officers in 1948) were restricted to one area; they had to work Beale Street. They could only arrest African-Americans. But guess what? A guy gets hired in 1948 becomes a police director. There is nothing we cannot accomplish in this city if we all work together. So I’m going to ask my officers to look back in history. We’ve gone through some tough times, but there is always a tomorrow where the sun comes up.