TheVoiceOfJoyce The NashVillager is concerned with important Community News: are Bears being crowded out of their habitat and roaming the State once again? What changed. Did you know Memphis was one of the deadliest cities for pedestrians? Nashville ranks 37 out of 100. Black and brown people are more often hit by cars. How are you celebrating the 250 th? Nashville is taking a different approach, they’re looking at our Anniversary through the eyes of Indigenous communities, the LBGTQ PEOPLE AND the Black and Brown people living in Tennessee. How are you celebrating our 250 th Anniversary?

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Catherine SweeneyPedestrian safety is something of a pet issue at WPLN.

It’s a good example of our mission — reporting about how public policy affects everyone, and that includes the city’s most vulnerable. Our infrastructure shows where we want to put our money and what our priorities are.

That’s why we put something on the air each time a pedestrian dies after being hit by a car. 

Since I’ve been hosting the afternoon newscast, I noticed there seemed to be so many more than last year. Eventually, we started saying, “There have been three times as many pedestrian deaths compared to this time last year.”

That’s why I wasn’t surprised to see this: a new study shows Tennessee is getting more dangerous for pedestrians.

WHAT TO KNOW

A sign erected to honor Billy Ray Swaner, who was killed
after being hit by a semi on Gallatin Pike this year.WPLN’s metro reporter Cynthia Abrams writesthat a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit, Smart Growth America, has released their “Dangerous by Design” report. It identifies the deadliest states and Metro areas for pedestrians.

The report uses information from as recent as 2024, the most recent complete set of federal data points. During that year, 7,080 people were fatally struck while walking in the U.S.

Topping the list, with 5.5 deaths per 100,000 residents: Memphis.

That rate in Memphis marks the highest fatality rate recorded by the report since it began in 2009. It also notes that people of color and lower-income communities experience roadway deaths at a much higher rate. Black Americans face fatalities at 171% of the national average. Native Americans and Alaskan Natives experience the highest percentage of pedestrian deaths at 367%.

While Nashville’s pedestrian fatality rates are significantly better than those of Memphis, the trend is worsening.

It’s already been a bad start to the year, with 14 people killed while walking — nearly three times more than at this same time in 2025.

The report ranks Nashville 37th out of roughly 100 Metro areas analyzed. While Nashville’s ranking has improved compared to recent years, it’s not because Nashville is getting safer.

It’s because other places are getting more dangerous faster. Nashville’s fatality rate has worsened.Get the full story

The NashVillager is supported by

and Nashville Public Radio members

On today’s episode of the NashVillagerpodcast 
with host Nina Cardona 🎙️ 

Will Tennessee’s healthcare safety net become off limits to immigrant children? Public health departments are being ordered by state officials to report the immigration status of children who receive government-funded medical care for critical and terminal illnesses. Plus the local news for June 11, 2026.  

Listen and subscribe on your favorite podcasting app
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Pocket Casts| Web

MORE TO KNOW

  • Dalton Eatherly, a rage-bait influencer who goes by “Chud the Builder,” has been sitting in a Clarksville jail, while conservatives raise money for his $1 million bail. The Nashville Banner reports that since his arrest for shooting a Black man named Joshua Fox, the case has “become a cause célèbre for white nationalists, January 6 defendants and self-proclaimed ‘free speech absolutists.'” The support has shown up in comments on his GoFundMe, which has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, as well as in the far-right pro-January 6 podcast scene.
     
  • Black bears have been spotted in Hickman, Dickson, Wilson and Sumner counties in recent weeks, WPLN’s environmental reporter Caroline Eggers tells us. The historical range of black bears covered all of Tennessee, but centuries of logging, mining, fire suppression and hunting forced bears into the high terrain of the Appalachian Mountains. Now, pressures from development, hunting and climate change are putting them back on the move. Caroline’s previous story about bears is in our ongoing nature series, Signal Species.
     
  • The Tennessee Democratic Party and several Congressional candidates and voters have voluntarily dropped their legal challenge against the state’s redrawn election maps. Among other things, the new map breaks up the majority Black district encompassing Memphis. The consolidated cases brought by the League of women voters, NAACP and ACLU remain ongoing. 

     

FROM THIS IS NASHVILLE

We all know the go-to patriotic songs that will be playing this summer, as America celebrates its 250th birthday. In Nashville, a group of musicians and songwriters are responding to this milestone with something different: unfiltered reflections on what it means to exist in America as Black, Brown, and Queer people living in the South. 

Catch This is Nashville with host Blake Farmer on YouTube,
or listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Apple Podcasts |  Spotify | YouTubeCHECK OUT TICKET GIVEAWAYS

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