u/Greedy-Sourdough

>People experience infrastructure socially before they experience it technically. Our built environment — whether we dodge cars or stand on bulbouts, whether we must drive or have other options to move freely and safely — is loaded with moral weight. Infrastructure elements become symbols of who the city is investing in, who belongs, and who may no longer belong soon.

On US urban planning, gentrification, race, class, the public health elements of transit and cycling infrastructure

>A few days later, across town, another homeless man died to traffic violence in Nashville. Billy Ray Swaner was 58 when he was struck by a semi-truck turning right. He appears to have been in the crosswalk at the time that the semi hit him. He died very publicly at a busy intersection in the middle of the day. Police claimed his death happened because he fell down, preemptively absolving the driver...

>Billy Ray and Hershel aren’t even the only homeless people who have died in Nashville while biking or walking in recent weeks. Another man, Larry Wallace “Pops” Smith was killed by the driver of a pickup truck on Second Avenue while riding a bike. Smith was housed at the time of his death but had a history of homelessness. He formerly lived in Nashville’s Old Tent City. In March, another homeless man named Clifford Coleman was killed while walking on Ewing Drive.

On homelessness & traffic deaths in Nashville