Mayor Indya Kincannon has named Transportation Engineering Specialist Cody Gentry as the City’s new Vision Zero Coordinator. 

Gentry has worked in the City’s Engineering department for 17 years, most recently as a key member of the Neighborhood Transportation Safety Program. The neighborhood-driven program engages the City’s Office of Neighborhood Empowerment, Transportation Engineering and Knoxville Police Department in finding solutions to vehicle speed and traffic safety concerns on residential streets.  

“I’m eager for Cody to lend his significant experience to our Vision Zero efforts and find multi-modal solutions to road safety across Knoxville,” said Mayor Kincannon. “We must work together across multiple city departments and community groups in order to reach our goal of ending deadly crashes by 2040. Cody is the person to bring those components together.” 

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 council unanimously resolved to endorse in 2021. 

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 says he’s excited to apply neighborhood traffic-calming principals 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. 

“And if mistakes are made, they’re not deadly,” he adds, echoing the Safe System Approach to street design recommended by the Vision Zero Plan. 

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. 

Learn more about Vision Zero and related projects and investments at www.KnoxvilleTN.gov/VisionZero and www.Facebook.com/VisionZeroKnoxville.