39 People Spoke Up After a Fatal Crash in Chattanooga. Is City Council Listening?
Members of Strong Chattanooga testify at city hall after a fatal crash on a dangerous street.
“You have the power to honor my family,” Adolfo Delvia Paz told municipal leaders in Chattanooga, Tennessee. “You have the power to prevent other accidents. This is us asking you to prevent other accidents, please."
Delvia Paz nearly lost his brother, Octavio, when the latter was visiting Chattanooga in November 2023. Octavio was walking on Frazier Avenue, a street flanked by cafes, shops, and homes on either side, with his wife, Anna Posso Rodriguez, who was carrying their 22-month-old son, when all three were struck. After colliding into them, the driver likewise smashed into one of the businesses on Frazier Avenue, Walnut Bridge Gift Shop. Rodriguez and their son did not survive, and Octavio was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries for weeks.
The tragedy prompted nearly 40 Chattanooga residents to speak up at a city council meeting. “We are creating environments, we have policies and design in place, that is not only creating victims, but also creating killers,” one resident told council. According to the local news, the crowd gasped in reply.
As shocking as the tragedy was, for many locals it was inevitable. Frazier Avenue is full of close calls: moments where tragedy is narrowly avoided. One man who spoke up at the meeting recalled a time when he was nearly struck while walking with three children. The driver was just as stunned as he was by the close call. Others added that close calls aren’t always the result of reckless driving or intoxication—”some are accidents.”
Business owners on Frazier Avenue have likewise long complained about speeding on the street. Jessica Dumitru, who was working next door at Art Creations when the crash occurred, told the local news that the building has been hit at least three times in the last decade. "I'm ready to talk to anybody that will listen and we've already talked to several of the other property owners, business owners up and down Frasier, people that are residents here,” she told the news. “And I think we're all in agreement that something needs to be done."
What Now?
Businesses along Frazier Avenue have the benefit of absorbing foot traffic from the nearby pedestrian bridge and the city’s bikeshare program. For that reason, the corridor is especially popular amongst tourists. At the same time, that bridge deposits people walking and biking onto what is by all metrics a stroad, according to Jack Johnson. Johnson is a member of Strong Chattanooga, a Local Conversation devoted to making the city the safer, more productive place it deserves to be. “It’s one of the most important intersections in the city,” he added. “Yet it’s also one where cars have smashed into businesses.”
When news of the November crash reached Strong Chattanooga, the group channeled their mourning into mobilization. “I guess we could use this analogy: if you’re in the wild and you find yourself facing a bear, you make yourself big and scary and you make a lot of noise. The bear doesn’t know any better and now it’s scared,” Johnson shared. “In a way, that’s what we did. We stood up, roared at city council, and showed ourselves as a bigger movement than what they were expecting.” By making some focused noise, he added, the group made sure the urgency kept echoing weeks and months after the crash. “And whenever the city doesn’t say anything for some time, we remind them.”
The city not only listened, it made a move. And it moved surprisingly swiftly. Within weeks, the city temporarily narrowed Frazier Avenue with orange construction barrels. In that time, crews were conducting speed tests which resulted in a lower posted speed limit. The construction barrels were short lived, to the disappointment of some advocates, but the momentum kept up.
The city conjured two designs, known as Option A and B, that they released to the public for a vote. While different, both designs feature a narrowed roadway, from four to two lanes, and bollards to protect people on the sidewalk should a vehicle exit the roadway. A final decision on the design is expected towards the end of March with implementation likely to begin soon after. Regardless of which design wins, there could be paint on the ground as soon as late Spring.
That paint will eventually give way to three-dimensional elements like the aforementioned bollards. Barring any unforeseen delays or opposition, in less than a year from the tragedy, Frazier Avenue will be transformed.
The pace of progress on Frazier Avenue is unusual for Chattanooga, and Johnson hopes it can set a precedent for how the city responds to crashes in the future. “Even when Frazier is finished, part of moving forward will be to underscore that we can do this with a bit of effort, we can do it swiftly—look how much better it is now, let’s do it everywhere else,” he added. “And if we figure that out, we can very quickly be at the forefront of scenic Appalachian southern medium-sized cities.”
With almost 120 pedestrians struck in the city in 2023—and a 250% increase in fatalities from the year before—hopefully it means the city can also be proactive in the future, and not just reactive.
Asia (pronounced “ah-sha”) Mieleszko serves as a Staff Writer for Strong Towns. A dilettante urbanist since adolescence, she's excited to convert a lifetime of ad-hoc volunteerism into a career. Her unconventional background includes directing a Ukrainian folk choir, pioneering synaesthetic performances, photographing festivals, designing websites, teaching, and ghostwriting. She can be found wherever Wi-Fi is reliable, typically along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.