Nashvillians will have more than one chance to enjoy a car-free path this year with Open Streets — a recurring event presented by advocacy nonprofit Walk Bike Nashville.
On the third Sunday of June*, July and August, locals are invited to join via bus, bicycle or on foot to enjoy a five-mile loop of the downtown area. It’s a bit of a departure for the event, which started in 2015 and in recent years has closed down a few city blocks in different neighborhoods — including Buchanan Street in North Nashville, and most recently Antioch Pike.
The streets will be closed along the same loop the organization used for community bike event Tour de Nash, which took place May 17. The route starts in Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, heads along the Cumberland River through Riverfront Park and passes through Rolling Mill Hill, near SoBro and through the Gulch.
Along the way, there will be booths from nonprofits, small vendors and businesses.
“Our streets are our biggest form of public space, but our mindset now is that they’re just for cars to drive down,” Walk Bike Nashville executive director Meredith Montgomery tells the Scene. “But really if you think back 100 years ago, everybody was sharing it — whether it was a market, a produce cart, or kids playing in the street. Everybody was sharing that space.”
The event is designed in part to show off the city’s existing pedestrian opportunities — and it’s in part aspirational. The route combines existing bike lanes and greenways with some of the Nashville Department of Transportation’s proposed bike lanes, connecting pedestrian-friendly areas that are currently disconnected.
“We’re advocating for the infrastructure and the built environment to be multimodal and streets-for-people,” says Montgomery. “But even if the mayor tomorrow is like, ‘Build the entire bike network this year,’ if there isn’t that culture shift of everybody’s mindset, we’re not going to be successful. And to me, Open Streets is a huge piece of that culture shift.”
The program is modeled after a concept that was born in Bogotá, Colombia, called Ciclovía. Every Sunday, the city closes around 80 miles of streets, treating the space like a park. That program also has a public health aim, explains Open Streets coordinator Calah Gipson, allowing people to ride their bikes or host workout classes in the streets.
“A big thing for us is just that having the street open — you can show up and do whatever you want,” Gipson says. “You can walk for two minutes and leave, and that still is a successful open street, because there were no cars to make it harder for you to get around.”
As a follow-up, Walk Bike Nashville helps people arrange to close their own streets for block parties throughout the year. The permits are free — it just requires a bit of bureaucracy navigation.
“I think our hope is that, if this is successful, it shows the hunger for this,” Montgomery says. “If a lot of people show up for this and they’re on bikes, then I think businesses, stakeholders, government see if there’s a safe place for people to ride their bikes and use these other forms of transportation, and they’ll do it.”
It’s also freedom for families, who won’t have to worry about safety as much.
“I think that’s one of my favorite things to see, is the families come out,” says Montgomery. “And [seeing] these kids have the freedom and the parents be comfortable with their kids just kind of running free.”
*Update: Open Streets postponed the launch of the Open Streets Summer Series due to "logistical challenges outside of our control." Organizers plan to still proceed with a rescheduled launch event in July.
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