The city of Lansing is doing a survey on possible configurations for the South Washington rebuild/streetscape project coming up next year. They have options that I very much like as presented. There's three A/B/(C) questions:
-For street type, I'm in favor of option "B - Curbless Street"
-For bike system, I'm a fan of "Option B" (basically an extended Capitol Loop separated bike lane route, no bike lanes on Washington Sq).
-For the "Washington Sq options" I'm less certain. "B1", a curbless straight road is my safe choice. "A", a curbless road with gentle curves, is interesting.
This is quite interesting, though, I wonder how quickly they could implement this with the imminent CSO project coming up.
I'm also a bit confused by the options. Are the "Washington Square Options A & B" subsets of the "Bike System Options" or are they options in themselves?
Anyway, my big consideration if the re-use of the pavers. Quite frankly, I want them reused on the actual street, but that doesn't appear to be an option. The "Option B: Curbless Street" gets closest to that. And Option B: Cubless Street also effectively juggles what I'm sure if want by business for street parking on the eastside of the square with opening the square to better cycle uses + people on the westside of the square get to keep their pull-in parking, which is quite frankly something I don't care about, at all, but is probably a concern for business owners.
The last two options I do not like at all. lol I don't think we need "chicanes" or anything that shifts traffic every mid-block. In fact, I think the best way to keep speeds low is...retention of the pavers. Nobody speeds on them, currently, precisely because it's not a comfortable drive. And I know they are thinking about this from a maintenance angle, but it's a great speed-control device all by itself.
It sounds like they plan to implement these designs with the CSO work, they say in the post this is in preparation for that.
As far as I can tell there's a question as to whether or not they want to create a main cycle path down Washington Sq or do a loop on some combination of Capitol/Walnut/Shiawassee/Grand/Pine/Kalamazoo. I'm a fan of the loop that includes Grand & Pine. If they do a cycle path down Washington it looks like one side would turn into parallel parking with the other angled, if no cycle path then they'd go with angled instead of the current perpendicular parking on both sides. They're also talking about doing the same curbless treatment on Washtenaw from Capitol to Grand.
I like the aesthetics of the bricks but don't find the unevenness of the surface acceptable for driving or even crossing the street on foot, much less if there's going to be a focus on street festivals. If they want to do a concrete underlayment for the bricks or something then actually maintain them properly then I'm all for it, but I don't see that happening.
Comments
-For street type, I'm in favor of option "B - Curbless Street"
-For bike system, I'm a fan of "Option B" (basically an extended Capitol Loop separated bike lane route, no bike lanes on Washington Sq).
-For the "Washington Sq options" I'm less certain. "B1", a curbless straight road is my safe choice. "A", a curbless road with gentle curves, is interesting.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19VyhgKsjC/
I sounds like they're thinking about the right things.
I'm also a bit confused by the options. Are the "Washington Square Options A & B" subsets of the "Bike System Options" or are they options in themselves?
Anyway, my big consideration if the re-use of the pavers. Quite frankly, I want them reused on the actual street, but that doesn't appear to be an option. The "Option B: Curbless Street" gets closest to that. And Option B: Cubless Street also effectively juggles what I'm sure if want by business for street parking on the eastside of the square with opening the square to better cycle uses + people on the westside of the square get to keep their pull-in parking, which is quite frankly something I don't care about, at all, but is probably a concern for business owners.
The last two options I do not like at all. lol I don't think we need "chicanes" or anything that shifts traffic every mid-block. In fact, I think the best way to keep speeds low is...retention of the pavers. Nobody speeds on them, currently, precisely because it's not a comfortable drive. And I know they are thinking about this from a maintenance angle, but it's a great speed-control device all by itself.
As far as I can tell there's a question as to whether or not they want to create a main cycle path down Washington Sq or do a loop on some combination of Capitol/Walnut/Shiawassee/Grand/Pine/Kalamazoo. I'm a fan of the loop that includes Grand & Pine. If they do a cycle path down Washington it looks like one side would turn into parallel parking with the other angled, if no cycle path then they'd go with angled instead of the current perpendicular parking on both sides. They're also talking about doing the same curbless treatment on Washtenaw from Capitol to Grand.
I like the aesthetics of the bricks but don't find the unevenness of the surface acceptable for driving or even crossing the street on foot, much less if there's going to be a focus on street festivals. If they want to do a concrete underlayment for the bricks or something then actually maintain them properly then I'm all for it, but I don't see that happening.