The East End Adopt-a-Corner program is a Tactical Urbanism project led by the East End Neighborhood Association with support and supervision provided by the Nashville Department of Transportation. The program seeks to beautify and distinguish the East End neighborhood, improve traffic and pedestrian safety by preserving sightlines, and build community involvement and pride.

Each adopted corner was selected by a local resident, business, or group for treatment with wheel stops, curb planters, and bike racks. By adopting a corner, these neighbors agreed to help fund the program and committed to maintaining their spaces for at least one year (Summer 2026 through 2027), including planting and watering all plants and clearing litter. All corner designs and materials were reviewed and approved by NDOT traffic engineers and installed by community volunteers in June and July of 2026.

All corner installations in our program are in what's called "daylight zones." On streets with curb parking, the daylight zone is the space near intersections or crosswalks that is legally required to stay clear of visual obstacles in order for road users--motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians--to see each other and know when it is safe to proceed. Tennessee law requires daylight zones of at least 30 feet from stop signs or traffic signals and 20 feet from other crosswalks.

As the global Vision Zero movement (efforts to reduce traffic fatalities to zero) has grown in recent years, traffic engineers and safety experts have become more aware of the importance of maintaining clear daylight zones. Street designs that keep vehicles out of daylighting zones have been shown to reduce traffic crashes and bodily injuries by 30% to 70%. Curb extensions and corner bulb-outs are now routinely incorporated into new street designs throughout Nashville to help prevent automobile crashes and vehicle-pedestrian collisions.

Though NDOT is incorporating curb extensions in new street redesigns citywide, too many intersections need protected daylighting zones for the city to rebuild all of them with newly-constructed curbs and stormwater. Instead, we are one of hundreds of communities nationwide that are beginning to retrofit intersections with "hardened daylighting." In Nashville this typically involves a combination of new road striping, plastic flex-posts, and loop bike racks.

In addition to the safety benefits identified by research and common to all hardened daylighting, the East End adopt-a-corner program has the added benefits of giving East End a distinctive aesthetic, creating community through neighbor investment and involvement, and encouraging bike and scooter users to park off of sidewalks. 

Finally, our program is serving as a pilot for community-led design for hardened daylighting and can hopefully lead the way for other Nashville neighborhoods to improve traffic safety using their own alternatives to NDOT's standard materials and configuration.