General plan

General plan

Working site for TN Route network

Each section of the network will have its own blog entry with links to relevant resources. Comment boxes are for suggestions and updates that may then be incorporated into the main post. Note: Proposed Routes are listed On the right panel. You may click on these and comment as in a regular post. However, it is a good idea to send me an email a bruceeday at gmail dot com

Tennessee Music Heritage Trail

Phil Pugliese and others discussed creating a Tennessee Musical Heritage Trail while at the National Bike summit. On his return Phil set up a phone conference with several interested parties and this project appears to have legs. The first step is to identify the physical sites to include on the route with a weighting of the ones deemed most important.  Jessica Wilson is working on that. When we get that list we will begin work to determine a route to include as many points as possible, look at spurs, and start working on local partners.
We we recently featured on Ginny Sullivan's Adventure Cycling Blog.
Stay Tuned.

Things to do now

Much of this is on hold while our role with RPM consultants is better defined, here are some things we can still work on to good purpose.

1. Evaluate TN NS 4a for cycling suitability.  Especially all South of I-840 needs to be checked as new rumbles have been applied in that area since my last visit.

2. Tweak TN NS 4a  thought Nashville.

3. Establish contacts for route coordination with MS, VA, KY, GA. 

4. Look at and amend as appropriate the other routes in your area.  Especially need suggestions for route from Nashville to Memphis north of US 70.

Using side bar links.

Many of the links on the right are to files stored in Dropbox. You can view or downloadthe file.   If it is an exec file you will need to save and run the file.

Route over view

Overall Plan
1. Two East West Routes.
a. Knoxville to Memphis via mostly SR 62 following an approximation of the Historic Avery Trace to Nashville, then US 70 toward Memphis but detouring South to connect to US 64 at Waynesboro
b. US 64 from Murphy NC to Memphis except for a detour where US 64 is routed on I-24 for a while.

2. Six North South routes.
a. Follow the Great Valley Route From Bristol to Chattanooga. This would connect with the Northern EW route in Knoxville to give connectivity to Virginia, NC, and GA
b. Celina to Winchester where it would connect with the Ken Kifer route to Alabama
c. Franklin, KY, through Nashville to Ardmore AL
d.Adventure Cycling Great Rivers Route, Land Between the Lakes to Natchez Trace parkway, to AL
e. Adventure Cycling Underground RR, roughly parallels Tennessee River to the Trace in the Land Between the Lakes.
f. Mississippi River Trail

I wouldn't argue with another NS Route between Memphis and Savannah and altering the northern EW route to more closely follow US 70.. I just don't know enough of that region to make a suggestion.

TN North South 1a, Bristol to Knoxville

TN NS 1b, Knoxville to Chattanooga

No map or anything yet

TN NS 4a Franklin KY to Ardmore AL

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/2457351

Note: route updated and changed to Ride With GPS on 9/8/2013 after submission to AASHTO for designation as USBR23

TN NS 4b ACA Great Rivers Route




OK, so I didn't do my homework. ACA Actually has two existing routes though TN, The Underground RR and this one. This is mostly the Natchez Trace and a connector to the URR in TN but deserves  noting.

TN NS 5 ACA UnderGround Railroad



This is the TN portion only

TN EW 1 NC boarder to Knoxville

Nothing yet

TN EW 2, Knoxville to Algood

TN EW 3 Algood to Nashville

TN EW 4, Nashville to Waynesboro

TN EW 5, Waynesboro to Memphis

Memphis to West Memphis via I-55