Solving One Issue with Another

In 2020, the city of Memphis, Tennessee was having issues with tires that were being dumped illegally. A former employee of an infrastructure company, Laura Murray, had an idea of how to solve this problem and tackle another one along with it. Her idea was to use the old tires as bike lane barriers. She teamed with a local industrial artist and they pitched the idea to the city of Memphis. Memphis was interested in the project but couldn’t fund a pilot but encouraged them to locate a non-profit that would be open for collaboration. Luckily, Binghampton Development Corporation (BDC) was interested in their proposal. With Murray’s idea, the BDC was able to create many jobs for the residences of the Binghampton neighborhood. The tires provide a low-cost alternative to flex posts and hold the same purpose. They’ve also received less complaints about being ugly than the flex posts and some residents have asked for them to be installed in their neighborhood.

https://www.peopleforbikes.org/news/transforming-old-tires-into-bike-lane-barriers