Tennessee United State Bicycle Route System

Not dead

2012-01-07T20:57:00.000-06:00

The inactivity on this blog is embarrassing. There has actually been less activity. With the new Tennessee State administration the documents to submit to AASHTO have languished with no real hope of action. Unless there is a drastic change in the political and advocacy landscape I'll soon abandon this blog and place the proposed routes on some other site, such as the Fogbees or Bike Walk Tennessee where the lack of action will be less noticeable.

Fundraiser

2011-05-03T11:14:00.002-05:00

Dear Fellow Cyclists,

May is national bike month and the second annual US Bicycle Route system fundraiser. Adventure Cycling is spearheading the development of a national route system to link major cities and other desirable destinations. Jessica Wilson, Tennessee Bike/Ped Coordinator, and TDOT have signed on to be part of the system. Bike Walk Tennessee is helping develop the route. In this time of austerity at all governmental levels any development done by us will go a long way toward making the system a reality. We will need your time, talent, and money to this project. Right now it's money. To donate, click here or the image below. The Razoo donation service is supplying their service for free so all the money will go to Adventure Cycling. Twenty percent of the money donated through the Bike Walk Tennessee page will be returned to Bike Walk Tennessee for local expenses.

Just imagine someday planning a cross country bicycle trip as easily as planning an automobile trip. Make it happen!

Thank you for your support,
Bruce Day
Regional Director
Bike Walk Tennessee
BikeWalkTN.org

Online Donations are closed but you can still donate by mail.

Adventure Cycling Association, 150 E. Pine Street, Missoula, MT, 59802.
Checks should be made out to Adventure Cycling with the phrase “USBRS2011- Team Tennessee” in the note.

RPM draft Report is out

2011-04-01T19:51:00.001-05:00

RPM's draft report on bike suitability/Bike routes is out. It is linked on the right sidebar under Resources. Please give it a look and post your comments. A version that will show routes in Google Earth is on the way. You should be able to better identify specific roads then. I will post that when available.

Note, the file is stored in Dropbox. Firefox, Dropbox, and pdf files are not playing well of late.
Internet Explorer is working fine. For Firefox you may need to go into Tools, Options, Applications and set Adobe Acrobat Reader files to always save.
Bruce

This blog is alive. and March 2011 update

2011-03-15T21:21:00.000-05:00

My first idea of how to use this blog made it appear nothing was happening. The idea was to keep the routes from scrolling down as new posts were added. This has been rectified by placing links to the routes on the right panel. Now we can comment and it will show the latest post correctly.

As of mid March, TN is still awaiting the results of RPM consultants current survey of bicycling suitability for state roads. Good news that Kentucky now has a Bike Ped coordinator who is interested in working with Tennessee to establish routes.

Tennessee Music Heritage Trail

2011-01-01T20:23:00.000-06:00

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

2011-01-01T17:30:00.001-06:00

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.

2011-01-01T14:15:00.001-06:00

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

2011-01-01T14:00:00.001-06:00

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

2011-01-01T10:00:00.001-06:00

TN NS 1b, Knoxville to Chattanooga

2011-01-01T09:50:00.001-06:00

No map or anything yet

TN NS 4a Franklin KY to Ardmore AL

2011-01-01T08:30:00.007-06:00

Note: 9/14/2010 Route Updated to give better route through Nashville.

TN NS 4b ACA Great Rivers Route

2011-01-01T08:25:00.002-06:00

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

2011-01-01T08:15:00.001-06:00

TN NS5 ACA Underground RR
Find more Bike Rides in Savannah, Tennessee

This is the TN portion only

TN EW 1 NC boarder to Knoxville

2011-01-01T08:00:00.000-06:00

Nothing yet

TN EW 2, Knoxville to Algood

2011-01-01T07:50:00.002-06:00

TN EW 3 Algood to Nashville

2011-01-01T07:40:00.002-06:00

TN EW 4, Nashville to Waynesboro

2011-01-01T07:30:00.001-06:00

TN EW 5, Waynesboro to Memphis

2011-01-01T07:20:00.001-06:00

Memphis to West Memphis via I-55

2011-01-01T07:15:00.000-06:00

TN EW 5a Memphis to West Memphis via I-55
Find more Bike Rides in Memphis, Tennessee

A Change of Focus.

2010-01-16T00:47:00.001-06:00

This blog was originally set up just to play with blog set up skills. Now a useful purpose has arisen. It will now become the repository for the Bike Walk Tennessee contribution to the Bicycle Interstate Route System. Or it will if it works.
The poetry will soon enter Google Heaven.
Bruce