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The irony is impossible to ignore: A burger joint leading a charge against bike lanes.

By any measure, Memphis is certainly in need of safer streets that support physical activity. In 2010, the city was labeled by Bicycling magazine as one of the worst places to ride in the entire United States. At the same time, Memphis was at the top of another list: It had the highest rate of overweight residents of the largest 50 cities in the U.S., with a staggering 70 percent of all adults overweight or obese.

So when Memphis officials rolled out a massive street project that didn’t include any facilities to encourage bicycling or walking, local advocates at Livable Memphis were ready to take action — and a won a commitment from the mayor for 55 miles of new bicycle facilities by 2012.

Now that the promise is hitting the pavement, some business owners are pushing back with misguided fears that bikes curb commerce.

Earlier this year, the city (with some help from the advocates at Livable Memphis) rolled out a proposal for Madison Avenue that would add bike lanes to this major east-west connector by converting the street from four traffic lanes to two (with a center turn lane). In his detailed memo, city bike/ped coordinator, Kyle Wagenschutz, outlines the traffic and economic benefits of the plan. Despite the wealth of data suggesting that businesses prosper in proximity to better bicycle and pedestrian facilities (click here for a number of studies in our Resource Library), a number of shops along the Madison stretch have risen up against the bike lanes, including a long-standing, much-loved restaurant.

“Hueys has been and continues to be a wonderful restaurant, and the owners (the Boggs family) have served as good stewards of the Memphis community for many years,” Anthony Siracusa, Memphis resident and secretary of Bike Walk Tennessee, says. “But today what we see in Memphis is a burger and fry joint blocking a bike lane in the second most unhealthy state in the nation.”

So advocates, like Siracusa, have been working overtime to make sure the bike lane proposal doesn’t get fried.

“Locally, we have waged a serious letter writing campaign with hundreds and hundreds of letter submitted to the Mayor and his staff,” Siracusa says. “We staged a bicycle buy-in, supporting those businesses that support the bike lanes. We sat down with the Mayor and invited two business owners to share their support of the road diet and bike lanes on Madison. In spite of all this work, we stand perilously close to a re-paving project on Madison that maintains four lanes of car traffic and provides no space for bikes.”

“While we thought we had turned a corner – leaving behind two straight years of being rated as the nation’s worst bike city – opposition from a small number of business owners has endangered a critical step in making Memphis a better place to live, work and play,” he adds.

Want to help? Write a quick not to Memphis Mayor AC Wharton with your enthusiasm for his plans to make Memphis into a bike-friendly city at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). And read more at the Walk Bike Memphis blog.

Pat Clements doesn’t know where the days went. “Time goes by fast when you’re very busy or having fun,” the Nashville resident marvels. “It seems like last week that the Alliance came to Tennessee to help organize a group of highly motivated and enthusiastic individuals into a cohesive team.”

Believe it or not, Bike Walk Tennessee is already blowing out the candle on its first birthday. But, even in their infancy, the organization has plenty to celebrate.

“We’ve tested our capacity on a variety of issues, started establishing relationships with influentials and built our base membership,” says Clements, the group’s president. “We’ve laid the groundwork for an organization that is well positioned to unite the state and promote walking and biking to a new level for Tennesseans.”

This week, Bike Walk Tennessee released its first annual report, packed with highlights like:

- The application of safety rumble strips to roads is an extremely hot item for bicyclists. With Tom Evans’ leadership we have worked constructively with TDOT to advance one of the most bicycle-friendly specifications in the country. Although many miles of bike-able road shoulder have been compromised by rumbling, we shouldn’t see seemingly arbitrary or irresponsible rumbling on any stretch of Tennessee highway going forward.

- Jonell Johnson, Mark Hicks, and others have spent countless hours examining traffic accident reports in order to identify ways injury to bicyclists could have been avoided. When necessary, they have provided local District Attorneys with information regarding traffic and bicycle laws to insure justice for victims.

- This year, the General Assembly passed the “stop light bill.” After initiation by State Senator Jamie Woodson of Knoxville, Bike Walk Tennessee promoted the bill and encouraged other legislators to co-sponsor it. The bill allows bicyclists to proceed though traffic signals with automatic detection after they have stopped and determined the signal has not recognized them.

To share their successes and strategize for the next 365, Bike Walk Tennessee leaders came up with an interesting means of engaging their members. Instead of holing up behind closed doors, the board will webstream its annual meeting next month.

Already, Clements has plenty of people to thank: a visionary group of founders, an engaged board of directors and a growing base of members across the states. “It is a tough but rewarding undertaking,” Clements says. “Organizing an effective grass roots organization seems like a near impossible task. It is indeed fraught with challenges, but we had plenty of help.”

Read more about Bike Walk Tennessee on their blog. 

In May, Bicycling magazine named Memphis one of America’s worst cycling cities. But a big push from local advocates could be the first step in turning around the Tennessee town. 

The ranking in Bicycling wasn’t exactly a surprise. According to the Alliance’s 2010 Benchmarking Report, Memphis lags in the bottom third of cities in just about every category, including safety and bike-ped policies. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act exposed just one example of the city’s seeming disregard for biking. While other jurisdictions loaded up their applications for stimulus funds with cycling and walking facilities, officials in Memphis didn’t include so much as a single sharrow in their ask for ARRA dollars.

Advocates with Livable Memphis weren’t content to let that omission slide. When the city started street repaving projects utilizing federal dollars, advocates rolled out an aggressive campaign to add accommodations for cyclists. 

Sarah Newstok, program director for Livable Memphis, says two Alliance workshops in 2009 gave her the tools to take on City Hall. The Membership Training in San Francisco, she says, clarified her organization’s mission. Then, attending a Winning Campaign Training in Little Rock armed her with tactics to advocate effectively.

“We really pulled out the stops,” Newstok says.

Livable Memphis members spoke at council hearings and sat down with council members. They lobbied members of his administration and met with Mayor A.C. Wharton Jr. himself. Advocates penned letters to policymakers, editorials for the local newspapers and saturated media with their pro-bike message.

“After chipping away from lots of directions the barriers seemed to crumble all at once,” Newstok says. “Our outrage about not including bike facilities in the repaving projects really came to a head this month, with a public scolding of our City Engineer by the Mayor.”

Shortly after the rebuke, Wharton committed to 55 miles of bike lanes and facilities, installed over the next two years. “Even though bike lanes were regrettably omitted from the city’s recent stimulus fund application,” Wharton announced on July 15, “I have directed our city engineers to make any necessary adjustments to their operating budget plans so we can get these lanes and facilities in place.” 

The about-face was significant. “This is a major turnaround for us,” Newstok says. “I feel like Memphis is finally at least facing the right direction.”

“Of course, this leaves us with a long list of next ‘to do’ items,” she adds. “But I’m energized and we have a very engaged crew of volunteer advocates. Here’s to getting Memphis off Bicycling magazine’s worst city list and to being awarded most-improved in the next ranking.”