Today's Northwestern story on "Palmeri's Main St. Vision" is a bit misleading. First, Paul Esslinger was the one who first suggested closing Main St. to vehicular traffic. I merely expanded on that suggestion at the last council meeting and then blogged about it.
Second, I do not yet have a Main St. "vision." What I want is for our so-called professional government to act professionally; in this case, that means providing us with at least two models of Main St. reconstruction and do a better job of educating the public (and the elected officials) of the benefits and disadvantages of each. Simply saying "that can't work here" or "it didn't work there" is just not good enough anymore.
Third, it is not at all surprising that the majority of business owners quoted in the Northwestern story express real fears about closing Main St. to vehicle traffic. How could it be otherwise at this point? There has been no public education about what such a plan would entail, and the city administration at the last meeting did not want to begin a serious discussion of anything other than the DOT proposal.
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"There has been no public education about what such a plan would entail, and the city administration at the last meeting did not want to begin a serious discussion of anything other than the DOT proposal."
Are you surprised? I'm not. It's time for the City Councilors to direct the City Manager to address the issues with the Community Development Department. An action plan requiring feedback from downtown property and business owners, and report to the council following would be a good place to start.
It's time to put a magnifying glass on the performance of the Community Development Department and it's director.
Unless I missed it, the DOT proposal didn't include any reference to wheelchair accessibility. Even now there's at least one 400 block location that has a "step up" to enter. Perhaps this is the responsibility of the business owner but in any event, the Community Development Department should be aware.
It seems to me that the Community Development Department, it's director and even the City Manager are personally insulted when someone like you, Tony, ask for documentation to support a statement or idea. It's like councilors and citizens should just follow blindly. I just can't buy that. And I'm glad you can't either.
What other communites have done is create a charrette. A charrette is a gathering of a design team which supports things like Traditional Neighborhood Development or TND.
Closing the main street to all traffic may not be the ideal solution based on TND planning. What TND tends to do is move the traffic to alleys so that on street traffic is minimized.
The charrette takes place over several days and is an intense brainstorming session
from a variety of disciplines-- not just DOT or other vested interests in the contruction game.
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