Over the past few you've heard bits and pieces about the dynamic and innovative plan we've been working on called "Complete Streets" in the Village of Oxford, Michigan. Complete Streets is a planning and design model that takes a new look at how we plan and design our towns now and in the future.
In the past the focus was on moving cars and trucks through a community as quickly and efficiently as possible. Very little if any consideration was given to the pedestrian, bicyclist, or other mode of transit. Now... with bicyclist and pedestrians being put at the top of the priority list... things are about to change.
To take a walk through of where we have been... and where we're headed... we need to go back to a pilot meeting that our ER committee attended in the summer of 2010. At that meeting we had an introduction to a new vision AND hope that MDOT has finally been made to understand that things need to change. Our towns have been dominated by fast moving traffic, lack of safe crossing area's, exposure to dangerously high noise levels, and down right fear. Imagine trying to use the street side parking just as a massive gravel hauler rolls past at over 35 miles/hour.... less than 18 inches away from you....with over 100 decibels of noise, diesel fumes spewing every where and that complementary skin exfoliation coming from the sand vortex that sucks your breath away. Do you want to Live, Work, Play.... Shop, Dine, Stay... in this environment? I think it has held us back from reaching our full potential and forced visitors off the main street and scrambling for cover.
So... with that out in the open... what can Complete Streets possibly do to make this situation better? It starts with soliciting input from our community. We've had several meetings with the plan developer, Birchler & Arroyo/Grissom &Metz during the past year. We've talked with them about our concerns and really dumped all the issues out on the table. They have been very good listeners and in fact were just out on the streets with us to complete a walk-ability audit. What we learned during that close up look at our streets was much more than most of us expected. The obvious things such as the truck traffic, lack of traffic lights, need for more safe pedestrian crossings were addressed in the walk about. However, we were enlightened by the lack of sidewalk space for navigating through certain "choke points" along the way. We found several other public saftey issues such as narrowing road ways that cars often jump the curb due to lack of indicators that the lane is ending and landscaping that is not thriving due to harsh conditions.
The next part of the story was a visit from the Lawrence Technical Institute Detroit Studios as part of a "Value added" part of the project. The story here starts back in December of 2010 our ER team headed to Detroit, Michigan... the New Center Area to meet with Dr. Joonsoong Kim of the LTU Detroit Studios.
We wanted to offer an opportunity to bring them into the fold by having their graduate students involved in parts of our Complete Streets process. The outreach would provide real life experiences for the students and we would gain some value added benefits in the way of idea's for our plan. The best part here is that it comes at no additional costs.
Our first visit with LTU Detroit Studio's involved a walk over our pedestrian crossing bridge with an explanation of how the bridge succeeds in allowing for safe crossing. The main concern we have is with the limited directional signage and way finding once the trail/bridge user reaches the extended out reaches of the bridge. There are little if any directional signs to invite or direct people into the downtown district. We have challenged LTUDS with the task of finding an efficient way to improve this situation AND work on the added need to connect the south and north ends of the DDA district with a safe, peaceful, and efficient way to move about town via bicycle or pedestrian way. We found a route that Dr. Kim described as "a hidden Oasis" and a "peaceful place" that they feel is worth a study.
These are the facts that tell... "the rest of the story" which you'd likely never hear from other sources.
Keep an eye out for the next steps of our process.
Don - great blog! I lament that had all of us held the Polly Ann Trail group's feet to the fire and made Larry put in those staircases on the bridge, routing folks to downtown would be far easier. What we have now is a bridge that effectively does what the M-53 bypass did to downtown Romeo. Very sad.
ReplyDeleteSteve Allen