The next front in the city’s greenline movement is along the floodwalls of Chelsea Avenue in North Memphis.

A bike lane runs along a flood wall on Chelsea running east near Evergreen. A former rail line in the area may form a section of a 2.6-mile proposed Chelsea Greenline.
(Photo: Lance Murphey)

Greater Memphis Greenline Inc. plans to develop a 2.5-mile section of an old railway into the Chelsea Avenue Greenline, a multiuse trail that will connect Overton Park with Uptown.

The line would run from the intersection of Chelsea and Evergreen Street west all the way to Thomas Street and then take a “slight jog” over to Washington Park, said Syd Lerner, executive director of Greater Memphis Greenline Inc.

The line’s eastern terminus is where the rail line once ran through Wilson Lumber and by Buckman Laboratories International Inc., whose property is not included in the proposed greenline.

“So what we are going to want bicyclists and pedestrians to do is to jog slightly to the south and go on Edward (Avenue) to McLean. And McLean is how people will get south to Overton Park.”

McLean Boulevard is now being striped with bicycle lanes.

The Greater Memphis Greenline group is still raising money and negotiating with Union Pacific Corp., which owns the 2.5-mile corridor.

Buying the land is one of three things Lerner hopes will happen simultaneously. Another element is designing the walkway for pedestrians and bicyclists.

“It looks intuitive because it’s a straight shot but we need to put in design elements – especially security elements so that people know it’s safe to get out here and get on it,” he said.

“Ultimately it’s the number of people on it that make it safe. So we have to bake in design elements to make sure that people feel safe to come and take a walk or take a ride.”

The eastern end of the Chelsea Avenue Greenline is just across the street from Wilson Lumber where the rail line once passed through the lumberyard. It is around the corner from the Morris Barber Shop, a part of the grassroots North Memphis political identity for several decades.

Like several other businesses on Chelsea, it’s a business built in old Quonset huts that give the business community its unique identity.

Just across the street is a boarded-up building with lots of recent gang graffiti on its otherwise white exterior.

Lerner said the third step of development is a strong community buy-in and involvement in an authority, which would run and maintain the greenline section working with the city of Memphis.

So on a recent Saturday morning, Greenline organizers and several community groups set up a bicycle rodeo including loaner bikes for children.

There were a few cyclists wearing cycling jerseys and shorts but many more children – some with helmets and some without.

The rodeo was an improvised obstacle course on the section of Marble by the Lincoln Apartments that dissolves into a gravelly path and then becomes a grassy area like the rest of the land south of the floodwalls.

“It’s a unique feature and the wonderful thing is even though it’s a business corridor, the businesses understand this can be an economic catalyst for the area,” Lerner said. “It’s also a way that their employees can get to their jobs. And in a disadvantaged community, transportation costs can be as high as a third of take home income. If we can provide people with a suitable alternative to getting somewhere in a car, that’s money in their pocket.”

Among those taking in the rodeo was Scott Banbury, who owns Midtown Logging and Lumber Co., 1750 Chelsea Ave.

The inner-city area is important turf in the city’s greenline movement, which is just coming off its most controversial chapter – the decision to add dedicated bicycle lanes to Madison between McNeil and Cooper streets in Midtown.

“There’s this perception that these are facilities that are being built for affluent whites or young people in particular,” Banbury said. “And it’s really just not true. It’s a need we’ve had among people who ride bikes out of economic necessity.”

A greenline is not new for the area. South of the proposed greenline route is what’s left of an effort by the city in the late 1970s to create paths by Cypress Creek.

Banbury was one of several people in the neighborhood who helped restore it approximately 10 years ago, cutting away some of the undergrowth and restoring park benches. But it is overgrown again with some makeshift encampments that provide a cautionary tale.