THE FLY-BY

March 3-9, 2022

Questions, Answers + Attitude

Edited by Toby Sells

MEM ernet

{WHATEVER HAPPENED TO

By Toby Sells

Memphis on the internet.

SOLIDARITY

POSTED TO FACEBOOK BY MIGHTY LIGHTS Mighty Lights, the ever-changing light show on the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, did what the MEMernet suggested last week. e bridge lights were changed Sunday to yellow and blue, the colors of Ukraine’s ag, to show solidarity with the country now under Russian invasion.

But some said the image of the bridge Mighty Lights shared to Facebook was old, showing a previous light arrangement used for a Grizzlies game.

NEVER ENDING ELVIS

POSTED TO YOUTUBE BY WARNER BROS. PICTURES In about a week, the trailer for the new Elvis biopic (issued last week) racked up more than 13 million views on YouTube. e movie is due in theaters in June and stars Austin Butler as Elvis and Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker.

KIMBALL COYOTE?

Nextdoor user Jill Anne Dyer Levy said last week she saw what looked like two coyotes near her house in the Kimball neighborhood. Comments on the post remembered the mythical Midtown Coyote, though someone claimed the animal had been shot. Other comments, though, listed other fauna spotted in and around Memphis including bears, beavers, foxes, and even Manny, the wayward manatee in the Mississippi River.

Peabody Paving Pause

e 2018 plans for the street are set to get underway this year.

Whatever happened to Peabody Avenue getting paved?

We reported on this project — and many just like it — as they were announced by those in charge. But we, and many online, have taken notice that some of those projects seem not to be going anywhere. With that in mind, we are launching an occasional series called “Whatever Happened To.” What became of those ideas and projects that were big news once upon a time?

For the rst installment, we looked at the Peabody Avenue paving project, expected to make Memphis more bike- and pedestrian-friendly. For answers, we spoke with Nicholas Oyler, Bikeway and Pedestrian Program manager for the city of Memphis.

Plans to pave Peabody Avenue were announced in 2018 and work was to begin in the fall of that year. e plan, determined through lengthy rounds of public input, raised eyebrows and caused some tension back then because the street would be completely recon gured. Its four very wide lanes were to be slimmed down with some added bicycle amenities. e new Peabody will have one travel lane each direction, a center two-way turn lane, dedicated bike lanes, and on-street parking lanes adjacent to the curb. — Toby Sells Memphis Flyer: Whatever happened with this project? Nicholas Oyler: We were preparing to go into construction in fall 2018 when [Memphis Light, Gas & Water — MLGW] alerted us that they had plans to do a major upgrade of its gas main running under Peabody Avenue. is is something they had not previously communicated with us. We were not aware of it.

If we had proceeded with the resurfacing as planned, MLGW would’ve come in soon a er us and cut up the street. It would’ve been a mess with a bunch of asphalt patches. … Because of that, it was best to hold o resurfacing until MLGW nished its work. Did they? ey did not notify us they were fully complete with their work until just last fall, fall of 2021. Most of the major work was done a lot earlier. So, from the perspective of passersby and residents, there were no more major holes in the ground and no more major construction going on before then. So, it

PHOTO: GOOGLE MAPS

e city’s plan to resurface the 1.7-mile stretch of Peabody from Bellevue to

Cooper was postponed due to MLGW’s need to upgrade a gas main rst.

appeared that [MLGW’s work] was done. But they were actually still doing some minor work on adjacent streets that had to tie into [the project]. So, now that we have that con rmation from MLGW, we have rescheduled the resurfacing to occur this paving season coming up. Any idea of when that will be? I don’t have an exact date. We will really know a little closer to paving season. Most of the asphalt plants … don’t open back up until the weather seems to have warmed up enough, usually when [temperatures are at] about 40 degrees or so and they’re pretty consistent. A lot of people have wondered about the communication between MLGW and the city on things like this. What would you tell those people? It’s something we’re always trying to improve, this coordination between city engineering, public works, and MLGW. We share our resurfacing lists with MLGW for the upcoming paving season … and they let us know if there are any con icts we need to be aware of. We catch most of them. But, unfortunately, there are times when something slips between the cracks or, maybe, there’s a more urgent repair. When MLGW realizes those need to be done, sometimes we just don’t have as much notice as we’d like. But there is room for improvement.