Sydney Rainwater
Shirelle Hallum stands in a neon safety vest, squinting through her big round sunglasses across Commerce Boulevard as a truck zips by. She’s ready to lead and ready to work — her boots on, sleeves rolled up and wispy brown hair pulled back in a velvet purple scrunchie.
The team of planners and engineers walk the cracked sidewalks lined by weeds, red Georgia clay and gravel on the visit organized by Hallum in her role with the Athens-Clarke County Department of Transportation and Public Works. It’s 75 degrees in the late morning in mid-April, and she hopes they will work together to find a solution that accommodates everyone.
Traffic safety is a high-profile issue in Athens-Clarke County, a community of nearly 40,000 college students, retirees and families alike. There were 352 car accidents involving pedestrians in Athens-Clarke County from 2016 to 2021, resulting in 19 deaths, according to Georgia’s Department of Transportation database.
Hallum is committed to making the county safer for drivers and pedestrians and aims to have zero traffic-related deaths in Athens-Clarke County as the county’s first Vision Zero Specialist. Vision Zero is a strategy used across the U.S. to prioritize transportation and public safety policy, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
That vision includes Commerce Boulevard.
The street isn’t home to much, except Athens Skate Inn and a new Athens Sports Arena. Hallum said she’s worried about children crossing the extra-wide intersection between the skating rink and the sports arena this summer.
Though her position was just created last September, Hallum says she works closely with all her coworkers, and that even though they had never met her when she applied, “the role was just crafted for me.”
Hallum’s husband, Chris, says he thinks she is brilliant and that she’s “never been happier in a job.”
Hallum’s role as Vision Zero Specialist is not without its challenges, though.
“I come from an advocacy role; but we’re not allowed to advocate,” she says. “We’re not allowed to push our agendas on mayor and commission. We do what they tell us to do, and that’s it.”
Hallum has a bachelor’s and master’s in public health and is finishing her doctorate in philosophy this spring, but she had to start somewhere.
She taught biology at a Title 1 high school in east Austin, Texas, just a mile away from a beautiful west Austin greenway. None of her students had ever been there because it wasn’t safe for them to walk.
Hallum says she felt a responsibility to, “find a way to change the system.”
Hallum moved from Austin to Atlanta to get her master’s at Emory University. Since then, Hallum has researched safety, equity and public works for many top research universities.
Now, Hallum and her coworkers analyze the built environment and “retrofit old roads to meet new needs.”
Prince Avenue is an example of their success in this. The DOT gave Prince Avenue a “road diet” — going from four to three traffic lanes and adding Athens’ first protected bike lanes despite predictions saying such adjustments would slow traffic too much. This made the street more accommodating to the commercial area’s needs, and it didn’t slow down traffic more than 20 seconds, Hallum said.
Hallum’s role in projects like these is largely in the early stages. She does research and runs analyses to identify possible solutions, then helps write concepts and initial design plans and helps engage and inform the public about the project.
The hum of a car passes the group in a dusty whirl.
Hallum’s dedication to her work is rooted in care for her loved ones — her husband, her two young children and her late mother.
Hallum witnessed her mom, Shelly Haugh, who had Lou Gehrig’s disease and was a wheelchair-user, face additional obstacles because of the unaccommodating built environment.
Hallum says the unfit environment kept her mom from connecting with people and “kept her from living towards the end,” because so many of her favorite activities— going on walks with family or getting coffee at a local shop with friends— were no longer easily accessible to her.
As Haugh’s condition worsened, Hallum spent many weekends making the nearly six-hour drive back and forth from Athens to Raleigh, North Carolina, where her parents lived, to help out around the house, just to drive back to Athens for the work week. Haugh died in 2019.
Accommodations are already in the works for Commerce Boulevard, Hallum says. That’s one step closer to a safer Athens, for everyone.
“This work is so deeply personal to me because I’m creating spaces where other people can, like, be free,” Hallum says. “And they can be themselves and they can connect.”
Why I Wrote the Story:
I wrote this story to explore sensory writing and extended interviews. I covered the city and county government beat this semester, so I knew I wanted to feature the Department of Transportation and Public Works. I chose Shirelle Hallum because of her unique background, newness to her role and her personal love for the work she does. This assignment taught me to reach out with boldness! And to not shy away from hard conversations.