Old West End Neighborhood Association

towards a decision

I will be part of a meeting with a few residents of the current SR32 this week and I am sure many good ideas will be presented there. However, my preliminary thoughts are very much in line with Bella's. I have my doubts about turning Main and Jackson into one-lane streets, but I would like to see as many cues as possible put into place that this is a street that runs through a NEIGHBORHOOD where children play. The signs stating such should definately be put into place.
Bike lanes and handicapped-accessible sidewalks should be in the minds of any responsible person in charge of a project such as this...especially with all the moms I see pushing strollers and all the residents of Gillespie towers living on 32 itself.
I love the look of bricked intersections (where the pedestrian lane is paved in brick across the road), but would like more information as to how long-lasting these are (with snowploughs running over them) and how easily they are navigated by those in wheelchairs, etc.
A mix of many kinds of pavement-friendly trees should be planted.
I am uncertain about whether power lines will also be affected by the changes, but if there is any way for that to take place, I know the sky on my side of main street (the side along the river) is polluted with power lines running in every direction and could use an up-grade.
One bumpout that would be beneficial is at the point where Main becomes a two-way street (just folowing the turn-off of 32 onto Kilgore). Cars begin to be parked along the right side of the street there. Currently this is marked by lines on the street, but a bumpout planted with perinnials would look much nicer and serve as a better warning to speeding vehicles.
Finally, I do not think Main could do with less parking. The streets are full of cars I identify as belonging to residents of the houses on Main. Many houses have driveways and parking spaces taking up their entire fronts yards at times, but that parking is not sufficient for the two, three, or four apartments of people living in each house.
There are my preliminary thoughts. I'm sure more will follow after further discussion.

~Lezlie

By lezlie

bumpouts

I definately agree that bumpouts should be placed where main street becomes two lanes. It is absolutely terrible to cross the street where it curves to kilgore. The brick paved intersections in my opinion hold up just as well as pavement. They are level with the street and the bricks are so tight together that you can't feel much of a difference, so I don't think that it would affect wheel chair accesibility. I agree that main street could use more parking but I don't know if that is possible if the street is tow lanes. I don't remember if he talked about it. Would you mind typing out a message once your main street group meets...so I can see what you guys come up with?

Good Ideas

Bella and Lezlie, you have presented great ideas. ALl of which are pratical and doable. I would like to say, conisider it done.

Keep up the discussion. I will be keeping a list of the ideas, and I hope to spend some time drawing some simple cross sections showing how these ideas would look.

I am so proud of us right now. Thanks

By Stephan

Additional thoughts

I really do like the ideas that have been presented and agree that we need to maintain two lanes for Jackson and Main. I would like to see the trafic slowed down though and beliefe that signs and salient walktroughs will work. In terms of additional parkin this is what I thought might be possible: If there are vacant lots, how about making tham into nice parking lots that have marked spots for houses in need of additinal parking. I know that parking lots tend not to look pretty, but fencing them in black cast iron victorian fences and adding flower pots and some pretty trees might make these parking lots pretty. I have not seen this done anywhere, but thought that instead of seeking a weedfield or a paved area filled with trash why not making it functional and at the same time pretty. We could even delegate the upkeep of these parking lots among members of OWENA.