Mayor Indya Kincannon has named transportation engineering specialist Cody Gentry as the city’s first Vision Zero coordinator.
Gentry will oversee efforts by multiple city departments, including Neighborhoods, Engineering, KPD and the Office of Sustainability, and community groups including Bike Walk Knoxville, to improve roadway safety and meet the Vision Zero goal, which the city council unanimously endorsed in 2021.
Cody Gentry
In 2022 and 2023, a steering committee and key departments/staff created the Vision Zero Action Plan, a road map to reach the goal. The project team leveraged crash data on where and why life-altering crashes happen in Knoxville, and asked residents to prioritize solutions, with the end goal of developing targeted strategies to save lives.
Gentry has worked in the city’s engineering department for 17 years, most recently as a key member of the Neighborhood Transportation Safety Program, finding solutions to vehicle speed and traffic safety concerns on residential streets.
Gentry says he’s excited to apply neighborhood traffic-calming principles and methodology to higher-speed streets and intersections that require more intense interventions.
“Traffic calming is all about slowing vehicles down, and that’s the main goal of Vision Zero,” says Gentry. “If we can slow vehicles down, we can reduce the risk of serious injuries and deaths.
Vision Zero strategies to reduce vehicular, bicycling and pedestrian fatalities are being funded by $8 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program and an additional $2 million in local dollars. The investments will be made in infrastructure projects to improve safety at five of the City’s most dangerous locations: North Broadway, East Woodland Avenue and three intersections on East Magnolia Avenue.
Keep up with progress on social media.
The city of Knoxville provided information and quotes for this story.