Forest Hills Slows Down by Design, Starting This Fall on Kingsbury Drive
October 22, 2026
October 22, 2026
Look at a cross-section of the new Kingsbury Drive. Each travel lane is 9 feet wide. Outside each lane, a buffer of 2 to 3 feet runs to the edge of the pavement. Intermittent mumble strips are cut along the fog lines, and speed humps return to the same five spots they held before. The plastic delineators that stood on the center line are gone. The road is narrow enough now that they aren't needed.
The City of Forest Hills states its goal in the August 11 paving notice as creating "a natural traffic calming along the corridor." Kingsbury, from Hillsboro Road to Old Hickory Boulevard, is the clearest case this year of something that runs through the whole city. Forest Hills controls its pace by limiting capacity. A narrower lane, a parking lot of fixed size and a park that closes soon after sunset all work the same way. When the city does want more access, it builds it somewhere else.
Each part of the redesign has its own job, and the city's notice lays them out plainly:
The schedule shifted a little once work began. City Manager Mark Hill's September 8 update set prep work for the week of September 21, milling for the week of September 28 and final paving for the week of October 5. That update put Rogers Group on the paving, which also covered Lynnwood Boulevard from Tyne Boulevard to Foxwood Drive. An October 6 reminder on the city's feed said milling on Kingsbury would start that week, with final paving the week after. It also listed repair work on Tyne Boulevard near Beauregard Drive for Wednesday, October 7. If you drive Kingsbury this week, you'll be on the tail end of that work or the finished result.
The smaller jobs from September were less visible. Sessions Paving was scheduled to patch Kingsbury, the 2000 block of Otter Creek Road, the 1700 block of Tyne Boulevard and Beaureguard Drive. PMT was lined up for curb work at the Hounds Run entrance on Granny White Pike, on parts of Edenbridge Drive and at Hillsboro Road and Tyne Boulevard.
Kingsbury is where the city's traffic-calming process ends up. The process starts with a traffic study. The September 8 update named four places where studies are beginning "due to complaints of speed, crashes, or other problems reported":
The city calls a study "the first step in our traffic calming procedures before moving forward in the process." Nothing has been decided for these four locations. They are at the start of the same process Kingsbury has just finished. The city links its traffic-calming guidelines from its public safety page for anyone who wants the full procedure.
Two of those four locations are on Otter Creek Road. That matters for the second half of the story.
Radnor Lake State Natural Area has worked by the logic Kingsbury is adopting for decades. Tennessee State Parks says parking is allowed only in marked spaces and that the lots fill quickly, especially in pleasant weather. The park doesn't add overflow space on busy days. When the spaces are full, the park is full.
The park's hours are tied to daylight. It opens at 6 a.m. and closes 20 minutes after sunset, all year. In late fall the evenings get shorter each week, so the afternoon window shrinks with them. The Walter Criley Visitor Center keeps its own hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed from 1 to 2 p.m. for lunch, and closed Sunday and Monday. Friends of Radnor Lake notes that you reach the visitor center by car from the West lot off Granny White Pike. An east parking area serves the other end of the trail system.
This year showed how firm those limits are. The park closed after the January ice storm. Fox 17 reported that it reopened on Monday, March 2, about two months earlier than expected, thanks to volunteer cleanup. The Tennessean's coverage, as shared by Friends of Radnor Lake, credits roughly 300 volunteers with that effort and notes that more work remained after the reopening. On February 28 alone, 43 volunteers worked on parts of the Lake Trail and Ganier Ridge Trail after Ice Storm Fern. The park came back on the same footprint it had before the storm.
When the Radnor system does grow, the growth goes to the edge. Friends of Radnor Lake describes the Harris Ridge Trail Project as a planned trail of more than 3.5 miles, rated strenuous, running from Otter Creek Road to Franklin Road. Its new trailhead and 100-car parking area are planned for the northwest corner of Old Hickory Boulevard and Franklin Road in Brentwood. The work still ahead includes cleaning up the property, removing invasive plants, designing and building the trail, and putting a bridge over Lakemont Drive. Friends says volunteer work is planned through 2026 and 2027, and its project page gives no opening date.
The parcels keep coming together. A March 21 Friends update described a hike and trash cleanup on the nine-acre Mantra Tract, the newest addition to the project.
Put the pieces together. Inside Forest Hills, the city is narrowing Kingsbury and studying two spots on Otter Creek Road. The largest new block of trail parking in the Radnor plans is going in at a Brentwood intersection.
The best things on the calendar from now through Thanksgiving week are small. Some are free and short. Others are ticketed and hold a limited audience on a hilltop.
At Radnor Lake, Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The Barbara J. Mapp Aviary Education Center holds free open houses on Saturday mornings. Five remain on the state parks calendar: October 24, October 31, November 7, November 14 and November 21. Each one runs three hours, so arriving early also gives you a better chance at a marked parking space.
At Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory, on Granny White Pike
Dyer's November calendar puts most of its programs into one long weekend, then adds a later telescope night:
The free Public Star Party on November 14 is on Dyer's calendar but takes place at the Bells Bend Outdoor Center, not on the ridge. Tickets and current details for every listing are on Dyer's event calendar.
Friends of Radnor Lake held its Radnor in the Round at Dyer on Sunday, October 18, and the event sold out ahead of time. This summer's Radnor Lake Art Show had 86 artists exhibiting 267 original works. Friends reports that 205 paintings sold and the show raised more than $101,000 net. The events that support the park also tend to run at a modest size and sell out.
All of this sits within a few miles of Kingsbury Drive. If the redesign works the way the city intends, the drive to the West lot on a Saturday morning in November will be a little slower, through the five speed humps on lanes 9 feet wide.
If you want to talk through how changes like the Kingsbury redesign and the Harris Ridge plans affect a Forest Hills street you know well, Beth Molteni would be glad to hear from you. She follows this part of Nashville block by block and is happy to share what she sees. Schedule a Consultation whenever it suits you.
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Beth Molteni
3825 Bedford Ave Ste 102 Nashville TN 37215