Car Free - Berclair Community --- Memphis, TN.

The Berclair community in Memphis, TN, have speed bumps and bicycle lanes. Now they need restrooms and bike parking at the stores. People are not just riding around the neighborhood for recreational needs but for practical needs like buying groceries. The Kroger on Summer Ave. does not have bicycle parking and neither do any of the stores nearby Berclair. Restrooms are nessarry even if people are not a customer coming into a store. 

Did Memphis Make the TOP TEN LIST for Being Car-Free Friendly?

Memphis, Tennessee, did not make the top ten list for being a car-free friendly city.

The key to having a more walk-able and bike-able city that is car-lite or car-free is to have a well organized mass transit system in place.

The City of Memphis, Shelby County, and the state of Tennessee has already had the funding in place to have planned for and implemented such a transit system long ago. 

Yet the powers-that-be have not leaned in the right direction.

And here are the results:

• Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) is one of the slowest moving public transit systems in the United States of America, often causing passenger ride times and wait times to stretch out long past two hours each way, especially if one is making a transfer.
• MATA is raising rates for passengers in December 4, 2011 to help pay for their new facility and to give administrative pay raises. 
• MATA is cutting back on how many times they make stops across all outlying areas and where nearly all the jobs are located.

Yes, MATA's officials have figured out how to provide less service for its poorest passengers, while giving themselves a big fat administrative pay raise. 


It is no wonder that MATA and their cronies all have big smiles on their faces when they show up at community meetings to pat themselves on the back. 

Of course, this has been ongoing on for several decades; and now, this is yet another ploy to make sure that the "have not's" stay in their places: in run down inner-city urban communities, in low-wage temporary jobs that fire them at the drop of a hat for being late to work when the MATA bus is late, to remain under contentious ongoing stress due to various poverty disparities, and to remain broke and poor forever more.   

Yes, MATA's administration has built for themselves a lofty multi-million dollar complex from which to control their empire; and whereby, few, if any of them, will ever use the bus system themselves; and thus, the ongoing social injustice done towards the poor will still exist.

If that were not true, then simply put, MATA would have spent all of that money towards serving the masses of poor people by reducing passenger wait times at all bus stops to ten minutes or less; and, they would have reduced ride times to one hour or less no matter where passengers live within Shelby County or the City of Memphis.

Not to mention MATA would have provided adequate air controlled shelters and dedicated facilities like restrooms at key bus stops throughout the city; and, passengers would have gotten a GPS tracking system that told them where the bus is right now in relation to when it would arrive at any given bus stop.

To get a clear picture about how MATA can bring its transit system into alignment with those in other cities, click the following link:

THE BEST CITIES TO LIVE CAR FREE

Carfree Citizens: Hard Pressed To Find Restrooms

If you are car-free citizen in Memphis, Tennessee, there is one thing that most of you have found out the hard way.

And here it is: public restrooms are to few and far between, and finding a private restroom is not getting any easier these days.

What you might find instead are signs hanging over a restroom entrance that say, "Customers Only, Employees Only, Out of Order, or Closed For Cleaning".

In some government buildings, one might find some security officers who will escort you out of the door if you attempt to search for a restroom on your own and without asking them at the check point first; and even then, there is no guarantee you will get to relieve yourself in a timely fashion.

These check point lines might be longer than you expected and even after you go through them and run-walk to the restroom, you might find one of those signs that say the rest room is out of order or it is being cleaned by a member of the opposite sex who is not about to leave until their job is done.

This sends a clear message not to go to such places just to relive yourself.

Make sure you have official business inside of government buildings and that you show up early.

The main excuse for all these signs, however, is the plight of homelessness and the up-serge of would-be criminals from which one or both groups together take over restroom faculties and attract more of the same type of people.

Nonetheless, public restroom designs are on the market that can reduce or eliminate the bad behaviors of vagrants, retailers, and government officials alike.

 To illustrate, new restroom designs are planned for  New York, New York that allow police offers to see through the restroom walls.

Silhouettes show up clearly enough that undesirable behaviors will not go unnoticed.








Here is an example, of clear glass walls, but the bathroom stalls are enclosed and the doors are solid wood.

Here is an example, of a smart glass system that can be set to various levels so that security officers can view only the silhouette movements clearly.














Sample of restroom doors with smart glass.