All -
In the interest of full disclosure, I've drafted a letter (attached) and floated it to some potential partners (listed a co-signers of the letter) including SPAN, GNA, Main St Morgantown, Urban Landscape Commission, etc. re: studying the impact on downtown vehicular traffic of closing 1) Chestnut from Willey to Pleasant or 2) High St from Willey to Pleasant (with simultaneous restructuring of Spruce to be 2-way) to vehicles. The goal would be a pedestrian street or mall downtown. We may spend some time on this at our next PSB meeting, Nov 7th, to edit/approvie it depending on discussions with potential partners on this idea. If others aren't interested and the PSB is not we will not ask the city to ask the state to study the traffic implications.
Some explanation of why the letter came about in the text of email I've sent to potential coalition below.
Christiaan
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I have had separate conversations with each of you, or identified you as logical partners with interest in developing a pedestrian mall to further improve our downtown for downtown businesses, residents, nearby neighbors, and visitors. During a recent presentation of the downtown traffic study by Andrew Nichols of the Rahall Transportation Institute (as a WVDOT consultant) discussion focused almost exclusively on pedestrian flow and improving downtown to better support pedestrians. Andrew indicated that, with the data he and his group collected about trip origins, destinations, and time, they could model the impact of any change to traffic flow or signalization on vehicular traffic time and congestion. Many informal discussions with my colleagues - easily a biased sample - tells me that young
people and young parents would welcome a downtown pedestrian mall.
With that backdrop I ask if now may be the most appropriate time to better understand what impact creating a downtown pedestrian only access for High Street (with simultaneous change to make Spruce a two-way street) or Chestnut Street may have. I'm sure one of the major concerns of downtown businesses is that store traffic would decrease because fewer vehicles (thus, shoppers) would come through downtown. Well, there's only one way to find out...we have to ask.
I would like, therefore, to assemble a coalition of the many stakeholders to ask the City via the City Manager to request the modeling be done by the WVDOT consultant and presented to the City (via Traffic Commission or in a small meeting of the coalition. I've drafted a letter I'd ask that each of you review, consider the request and ways to improve upon it, and consider any additional parties/boards/commissions that should be included. Then, if you're all on board, can we meet to discuss at an upcoming MSM, SPAN, Tree Board, Green Team, or GNA meeting in early November? We may be able to host a discussion during our 1st Monday-of-the-month Pedestrian Safety Board meeting if so desired.
WVDOT will only ask the consultant to perform the modeling if the City has interest. Thus, as the multiple interested parties we have to band together to show the City that businesses and residents are interested. They'll only act if they know they have our support.
This could be a great first step toward determining, using quantitative data, the potential impacts of a downtown pedestrian street.
I look forward to hearing from each of you,
Walk more, safely
Morgantown Pedestrian Safety Board
Christiaan Abildso, Chair
Bill Reger-Nash, Vice Chair