Tennessee Group Livable Memphis Advocates for Slower Speeds

MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE – July 7, 2014 – RoadTrafficSigns.com continues its commitment to safer streets by donating “20 is Plenty” signs to Livable Memphis. Livable Memphis has kicked off a guerrilla signposting campaign across the city to encourage slower and safer driving on neighborhood streets. The signs are available to Memphis residents through Livable Memphis’s Twitter account.

“Our goal is to create a more relaxed transportation environment for all, not only drivers,” said Community Manager for RoadTrafficSigns.com. “There is a 98% chance that a pedestrian will live if struck by a vehicle traveling at 20mph. At 40mph, there is only a 20% chance that same pedestrian will survive.”

This effort follows Livable Memphis’s Walking and Biking Advocacy initiative. After suggesting and implementing sidewalks and lanes to encourage residents to walk and bike more, the next logical step is slowing down traffic.

“Livable Memphis’s focus is to make our streets more walkable, bikeable, and livable. We are living, deeply, in a car culture,” said Ellen Roberds, Creative Placemaker for Livable Memphis. “Often speed limits are not posted on residential streets, and the legal limit of 30mph is too fast for many of our streets with cars parked on either side, residents walking, and children biking. We want the signs to remind our drivers that it’s okay to slow down.”

The Tennessee group believes in enhancing the Memphis region through balanced development, shared benefits and costs, access and choice, community input and collaboration, environmental protection, and smarter spending.

ioby, a crowd-resourcing platform for citizen-led neighbor-funded projects, recently launched in the city of Memphis. With 31% of their projects based in Brooklyn, the organization connected Livable Memphis to RoadTrafficSigns.com, also based in Brooklyn.

RoadTrafficSigns.com previously donated “20 is Plenty” signs to New York City’s direct action bike and pedestrian advocacy group, Right of Way. The signs benefitted 10 neighborhoods across New York City that had pending requests to slow speed limits to 20mph as part of a program called “Slow Zones.”

Notes to the Editor
The signs have previously been featured in The Atlantic CityLab article, "A DIY Approach to Slowing a City's Cars."

About RoadTrafficSigns
RoadTrafficSigns is a Brooklyn-based traffic signage company. Its mission is to sell affordable, quality signs through an easy and efficient process. All signs are compliant with the MUTCD (Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices). RoadTrafficSigns is a subsidiary of the SmartSign family. For more information, please visit www.roadtrafficsigns.com.