10/4/21 Statement on Melinda Lovelady’s Fatal Crash while Riding a Scooter

All of us at Walk Bike Nashville were devastated to hear about Melinda Lovelady’s death in downtown Nashville over the weekend. Our thoughts go out to her family and friends in this difficult time. 

It is critically important that the City of Nashville and the Department of Transportation prioritize safety in the design of our streets, and move to take immediate action to achieve Vision Zero in Nashville and eliminate all fatal and serious traffic crashes. 

Our streets should be designed to provide safe, separate spaces for everyone trying to move around our city who are not in cars. In our downtown core, we need a network of streets that separate bicycle and scooter riders from car and truck traffic. For the past several years there have been plans in the works to install a protected lane on 3rd Ave for bicycles and scooters. Over 2,000 Nashvillians have signed our petition in support of this critical infrastructure on 3rd Ave. See the city's plans for the downtown bikeways here.

We urge the Department of Transportation to investigate the circumstances of this crash, and what may have been done to prevent it. And we urge Mayor Cooper to move forward on plans to finally complete the downtown bike/scooter-lane network to ensure all Nashvillians can safely move through the city and no other family loses a loved one.