NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Nine years ago, Daniel McDonell moved near the intersection of Shelby Avenue and 10th Street in East Nashville.

“I still have a memory of coming into East Nashville for the first time we were moving here and driving through that intersection thinking, ‘wow, this is a bad intersection,'” he said.

It is an intersection that almost took the life of Jabarri Patterson over a month ago.

McDonell was one of many community members that called for change after Patterson was hit by a car.

“You could think of crossing there yourself because you’re so close,” he said.

He reached out to the Civic Design Center to share his thoughts about how this intersection could be improved.

“We were doing some measuring of this intersection and it’s big enough to fit a baseball diamond,” said Erik Hoke.

Hoke is the center’s design director and worked with McDonnell to create visuals of his ideas.

“That’s sort of been our playbook since the beginning is creating visualizations that can suggest ideas for the future of our city,” he said.

Ideas like adding stop signs, eliminating the intersection’s left turn lane and even adding a traffic circle.

“When someone can put pen to paper and show that there then you see, oh, it’s not actually that complex,” said McDonell.

The Nashville Department of Transportation did add rapid flashing beacons shortly after Patterson’s incident.

But McDonell believes visualizing more change can help city leaders continue to improve this intersection for all who use it.

“If we can actually get something really good done in one place then we can copy that,” he said. “We can use that as a model, we can break the mode, and keep doing it and getting it implemented.”

You can view the designs and read more of McDonell’s ideas to improve that intersection HERE.