Bicycle Board Members,
Let me know if you would support converting downtown to a pedestrian mall. If a majority does, I'll suggest adding the Bicycle Board to the signatory list.
Frank
Begin forwarded message:
From: Morgantown Pedestrian Safety Board walkmgw@yahoo.com Date: October 27, 2011 8:21:57 AM EDT To: Bill Reger-Nash wreger@hsc.wvu.edu, Bob Anderson randerson@hsc.wvu.edu, Christiaan Abildso cgabildso@mail.wvu.edu, Dave Harshbarger harshbargerd@wvuh.com, David Small dsmall1@mix.wvu.edu, Dwight Harshbarger dwight.harshbarger@gmail.com, George Lilley mgranlil@frontier.com, Ilana Chertok ichertok@hsc.wvu.edu, Jan Derry jderry@nwvcil.org, Jimmie Simmons Jsimmons2642@yahoo.com, Jonathan Rosenbaum freesource@cheat.org, Maria Smith mariasmith@busride.org, Martha Summers msummers@hsc.wvu.edu, Michael Graham migraham@hsc.wvu.edu, Regina Mayolo reginam@verizon.net, Sarah Bias sarahbias@gmail.com, Stan Cohen Stanley.Cohen@mail.wvu.edu, Tom Bias tbias@hsc.wvu.edu Cc: Angela Wiley wileya120@gmail.com, Bill Austin baustin@labyrinth.net, Claire Chantler cchantler@nwvcil.org, Damien Davis ddavis@cityofmorgantown.org, Ella Belling ella@montrails.org, Frank Gmeindl fgmeindl@gmail.com, Hugh Kierig Hugh.Kierig@mail.wvu.edu, Jim Hunt jimhunt@sunnysideupwv.org, Jim Rye Jim.Rye@mail.wvu.edu, Josh Woods joshua.woods@mail.wvu.edu, Kevin Leyden Kevin.Leyden@mail.wvu.edu, Matt Cross crossnyc@hotmail.com, Michael Simms michael.d.simms@gmail.com, Mike Breiding mike@EpicRoadTrips.us, Nick Hein info@positivespin.org, Roy Nutter roy.nutter@mail.wvu.edu Subject: Pedestrian Safety Board - another letter in the works Reply-To: Morgantown Pedestrian Safety Board walkmgw@yahoo.com
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
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 http://www.morgantown.com/ped-safety-board.htm
Wow. There's some aggressive ideas being thrown around now-a-days. I've spent some time at the Charlottesville mall, and it's a unique kind of place, with lots of outdoor dining area right there in the open corridor.
I would think it would fit the college night time scene quite nicely, when often the sidewalks are totally jammed up.
High St seems to obvious location, but there would be a lot of parking eliminated, as well as traffic shifted down to an already busy US19 (whatever name it has), and the Stores are already designed around High being "Main St".
Chestnut street would have less impact on traffic, although I wonder how the stores that currently face High Street would feel. Chestnut is quite narrow, and I don't think would feel as open. Nor would there be much space for seating outside on the mall.
The Charlottesville mall does not allow you to ride a bike on it, you have to dismount. This presents an issue to cyclists if Chestnut and Spruce stay the same, since you now have to go down to an even busier US19, or push your bike for 4 blocks downhill.
Ryan
From: bikeboard-bounces@cheat.org [mailto:bikeboard-bounces@cheat.org] On Behalf Of Frank Gmeindl Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2011 10:23 AM To: Bicycle Board Cc: Christiaan Abildso Subject: [Bikeboard] Fwd: Pedestrian Safety Board - another letter in the works
Bicycle Board Members,
Let me know if you would support converting downtown to a pedestrian mall. If a majority does, I'll suggest adding the Bicycle Board to the signatory list.
Frank
Begin forwarded message:
From: Morgantown Pedestrian Safety Board walkmgw@yahoo.com
Date: October 27, 2011 8:21:57 AM EDT
To: Bill Reger-Nash wreger@hsc.wvu.edu, Bob Anderson randerson@hsc.wvu.edu, Christiaan Abildso cgabildso@mail.wvu.edu, Dave Harshbarger harshbargerd@wvuh.com, David Small dsmall1@mix.wvu.edu, Dwight Harshbarger dwight.harshbarger@gmail.com, George Lilley mgranlil@frontier.com, Ilana Chertok ichertok@hsc.wvu.edu, Jan Derry jderry@nwvcil.org, Jimmie Simmons Jsimmons2642@yahoo.com, Jonathan Rosenbaum freesource@cheat.org, Maria Smith mariasmith@busride.org, Martha Summers msummers@hsc.wvu.edu, Michael Graham migraham@hsc.wvu.edu, Regina Mayolo reginam@verizon.net, Sarah Bias sarahbias@gmail.com, Stan Cohen Stanley.Cohen@mail.wvu.edu, Tom Bias tbias@hsc.wvu.edu
Cc: Angela Wiley wileya120@gmail.com, Bill Austin baustin@labyrinth.net, Claire Chantler cchantler@nwvcil.org, Damien Davis ddavis@cityofmorgantown.org, Ella Belling ella@montrails.org, Frank Gmeindl fgmeindl@gmail.com, Hugh Kierig Hugh.Kierig@mail.wvu.edu, Jim Hunt jimhunt@sunnysideupwv.org, Jim Rye Jim.Rye@mail.wvu.edu, Josh Woods joshua.woods@mail.wvu.edu, Kevin Leyden Kevin.Leyden@mail.wvu.edu, Matt Cross crossnyc@hotmail.com, Michael Simms michael.d.simms@gmail.com, Mike Breiding mike@EpicRoadTrips.us, Nick Hein info@positivespin.org, Roy Nutter roy.nutter@mail.wvu.edu
Subject: Pedestrian Safety Board - another letter in the works
Reply-To: Morgantown Pedestrian Safety Board walkmgw@yahoo.com
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
-----------------------
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
http://www.morgantown.com/ped-safety-board.htm http://www.morgantown.com/ped-safety-board.htm
I'm not sure I think a pedestrian mall is a good idea for Morgantown. We would lose much of our character and become less distinguishable from the many other small university towns with pedestrian malls. Charlottesville, VA and Burlington, VT are two with which I've had some experience as I've lived in both those places. One immediate effect is to send a lot of shopping traffic away from the downtowns to the outlying "malls". That might be even worse here considering the dirth of access our downtown faces. And where would we have all those wonderful parades?
I'm sure in the end many better heads than mine will be needed to sort through the impact of the various options and as long as enough time is devoted to careful planning and study I'm sure it will work out for the best. Let's just not rush headlong into a solution that's been applied elsewhere and hope it works well for us. Cheers, Butch
-------------------------------------------
Stephen G. Graber
Biochem & Mol Pharmacology
PO Box 9142, HSN-3122
West Virginia University
Morgantown, WV 26506-9142
phone: 304-293-2305
------ _0
------ _ <,_
---- (*)/ (*)
________________________________ From: bikeboard-bounces@cheat.org [bikeboard-bounces@cheat.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Post [rpostwvu@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2011 11:03 AM To: 'Frank Gmeindl'; 'Bicycle Board' Cc: Abildso, Christiaan Subject: Re: [Bikeboard] Fwd: Pedestrian Safety Board - another letter in the works
Wow. There’s some aggressive ideas being thrown around now-a-days. I’ve spent some time at the Charlottesville mall, and it’s a unique kind of place, with lots of outdoor dining area right there in the open corridor.
I would think it would fit the college night time scene quite nicely, when often the sidewalks are totally jammed up.
High St seems to obvious location, but there would be a lot of parking eliminated, as well as traffic shifted down to an already busy US19 (whatever name it has), and the Stores are already designed around High being “Main St”.
Chestnut street would have less impact on traffic, although I wonder how the stores that currently face High Street would feel. Chestnut is quite narrow, and I don’t think would feel as open. Nor would there be much space for seating outside on the mall.
The Charlottesville mall does not allow you to ride a bike on it, you have to dismount. This presents an issue to cyclists if Chestnut and Spruce stay the same, since you now have to go down to an even busier US19, or push your bike for 4 blocks downhill.
Ryan
From: bikeboard-bounces@cheat.org [mailto:bikeboard-bounces@cheat.org] On Behalf Of Frank Gmeindl Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2011 10:23 AM To: Bicycle Board Cc: Christiaan Abildso Subject: [Bikeboard] Fwd: Pedestrian Safety Board - another letter in the works
Bicycle Board Members,
Let me know if you would support converting downtown to a pedestrian mall. If a majority does, I'll suggest adding the Bicycle Board to the signatory list.
Frank
Begin forwarded message:
From: Morgantown Pedestrian Safety Board <walkmgw@yahoo.commailto:walkmgw@yahoo.com> Date: October 27, 2011 8:21:57 AM EDT To: Bill Reger-Nash <wreger@hsc.wvu.edumailto:wreger@hsc.wvu.edu>, Bob Anderson <randerson@hsc.wvu.edumailto:randerson@hsc.wvu.edu>, Christiaan Abildso <cgabildso@mail.wvu.edumailto:cgabildso@mail.wvu.edu>, Dave Harshbarger <harshbargerd@wvuh.commailto:harshbargerd@wvuh.com>, David Small <dsmall1@mix.wvu.edumailto:dsmall1@mix.wvu.edu>, Dwight Harshbarger <dwight.harshbarger@gmail.commailto:dwight.harshbarger@gmail.com>, George Lilley <mgranlil@frontier.commailto:mgranlil@frontier.com>, Ilana Chertok <ichertok@hsc.wvu.edumailto:ichertok@hsc.wvu.edu>, Jan Derry <jderry@nwvcil.orgmailto:jderry@nwvcil.org>, Jimmie Simmons <Jsimmons2642@yahoo.commailto:Jsimmons2642@yahoo.com>, Jonathan Rosenbaum <freesource@cheat.orgmailto:freesource@cheat.org>, Maria Smith <mariasmith@busride.orgmailto:mariasmith@busride.org>, Martha Summers <msummers@hsc.wvu.edumailto:msummers@hsc.wvu.edu>, Michael Graham <migraham@hsc.wvu.edumailto:migraham@hsc.wvu.edu>, Regina Mayolo <reginam@verizon.netmailto:reginam@verizon.net>, Sarah Bias <sarahbias@gmail.commailto:sarahbias@gmail.com>, Stan Cohen <Stanley.Cohen@mail.wvu.edumailto:Stanley.Cohen@mail.wvu.edu>, Tom Bias <tbias@hsc.wvu.edumailto:tbias@hsc.wvu.edu> Cc: Angela Wiley <wileya120@gmail.commailto:wileya120@gmail.com>, Bill Austin <baustin@labyrinth.netmailto:baustin@labyrinth.net>, Claire Chantler <cchantler@nwvcil.orgmailto:cchantler@nwvcil.org>, Damien Davis <ddavis@cityofmorgantown.orgmailto:ddavis@cityofmorgantown.org>, Ella Belling <ella@montrails.orgmailto:ella@montrails.org>, Frank Gmeindl <fgmeindl@gmail.commailto:fgmeindl@gmail.com>, Hugh Kierig <Hugh.Kierig@mail.wvu.edumailto:Hugh.Kierig@mail.wvu.edu>, Jim Hunt <jimhunt@sunnysideupwv.orgmailto:jimhunt@sunnysideupwv.org>, Jim Rye <Jim.Rye@mail.wvu.edumailto:Jim.Rye@mail.wvu.edu>, Josh Woods <joshua.woods@mail.wvu.edumailto:joshua.woods@mail.wvu.edu>, Kevin Leyden <Kevin.Leyden@mail.wvu.edumailto:Kevin.Leyden@mail.wvu.edu>, Matt Cross <crossnyc@hotmail.commailto:crossnyc@hotmail.com>, Michael Simms <michael.d.simms@gmail.commailto:michael.d.simms@gmail.com>, Mike Breiding <mike@EpicRoadTrips.usmailto:mike@EpicRoadTrips.us>, Nick Hein <info@positivespin.orgmailto:info@positivespin.org>, Roy Nutter <roy.nutter@mail.wvu.edumailto:roy.nutter@mail.wvu.edu> Subject: Pedestrian Safety Board - another letter in the works Reply-To: Morgantown Pedestrian Safety Board <walkmgw@yahoo.commailto:walkmgw@yahoo.com>
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 ----------------------- 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 http://www.morgantown.com/ped-safety-board.htm
While I like the idea of a ped Mall, and I thought that the way Charlotesville, VA was nice (not allowing bikes, which wasn't a deal breaker for me),
I hadn't thought about the lack of parade space and that sort of thing. I've lived here a while and it's quite the common place thing for me, but Betsy is still astounded that there are so many parades and such downtown. It would be bad to not have that.
I think we really need a diversion for truck traffic through dahntawn and no traffic through the main WVU campus. But I guess that's for another topic...
On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 11:16 AM, Graber, Stephen sggraber@hsc.wvu.edu wrote:
I'm not sure I think a pedestrian mall is a good idea for Morgantown. We would lose much of our character and become less distinguishable from the many other small university towns with pedestrian malls. Charlottesville, VA and Burlington, VT are two with which I've had some experience as I've lived in both those places. One immediate effect is to send a lot of shopping traffic away from the downtowns to the outlying "malls". That might be even worse here considering the dirth of access our downtown faces. And where would we have all those wonderful parades?
I'm sure in the end many better heads than mine will be needed to sort through the impact of the various options and as long as enough time is devoted to careful planning and study I'm sure it will work out for the best. Let's just not rush headlong into a solution that's been applied elsewhere and hope it works well for us. Cheers, Butch
Stephen G. Graber
Biochem & Mol Pharmacology
PO Box 9142, HSN-3122
West Virginia University
Morgantown, WV 26506-9142
phone: 304-293-2305
------ _0
------ _ <,_
---- (*)/ (*)
From: bikeboard-bounces@cheat.org [bikeboard-bounces@cheat.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Post [rpostwvu@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2011 11:03 AM To: 'Frank Gmeindl'; 'Bicycle Board' Cc: Abildso, Christiaan Subject: Re: [Bikeboard] Fwd: Pedestrian Safety Board - another letter in the works
Wow. There’s some aggressive ideas being thrown around now-a-days. I’ve spent some time at the Charlottesville mall, and it’s a unique kind of place, with lots of outdoor dining area right there in the open corridor.
I would think it would fit the college night time scene quite nicely, when often the sidewalks are totally jammed up.
High St seems to obvious location, but there would be a lot of parking eliminated, as well as traffic shifted down to an already busy US19 (whatever name it has), and the Stores are already designed around High being “Main St”.
Chestnut street would have less impact on traffic, although I wonder how the stores that currently face High Street would feel. Chestnut is quite narrow, and I don’t think would feel as open. Nor would there be much space for seating outside on the mall.
The Charlottesville mall does not allow you to ride a bike on it, you have to dismount. This presents an issue to cyclists if Chestnut and Spruce stay the same, since you now have to go down to an even busier US19, or push your bike for 4 blocks downhill.
Ryan
From: bikeboard-bounces@cheat.org [mailto:bikeboard-bounces@cheat.org] On Behalf Of Frank Gmeindl Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2011 10:23 AM To: Bicycle Board Cc: Christiaan Abildso Subject: [Bikeboard] Fwd: Pedestrian Safety Board - another letter in the works
Bicycle Board Members,
Let me know if you would support converting downtown to a pedestrian mall. If a majority does, I'll suggest adding the Bicycle Board to the signatory list.
Frank
Begin forwarded message:
From: Morgantown Pedestrian Safety Board walkmgw@yahoo.com
Date: October 27, 2011 8:21:57 AM EDT
To: Bill Reger-Nash wreger@hsc.wvu.edu, Bob Anderson randerson@hsc.wvu.edu, Christiaan Abildso cgabildso@mail.wvu.edu, Dave Harshbarger harshbargerd@wvuh.com, David Small dsmall1@mix.wvu.edu, Dwight Harshbarger dwight.harshbarger@gmail.com, George Lilley mgranlil@frontier.com, Ilana Chertok ichertok@hsc.wvu.edu, Jan Derry jderry@nwvcil.org, Jimmie Simmons Jsimmons2642@yahoo.com, Jonathan Rosenbaum freesource@cheat.org, Maria Smith mariasmith@busride.org, Martha Summers msummers@hsc.wvu.edu, Michael Graham migraham@hsc.wvu.edu, Regina Mayolo reginam@verizon.net, Sarah Bias sarahbias@gmail.com, Stan Cohen Stanley.Cohen@mail.wvu.edu, Tom Bias tbias@hsc.wvu.edu
Cc: Angela Wiley wileya120@gmail.com, Bill Austin baustin@labyrinth.net, Claire Chantler cchantler@nwvcil.org, Damien Davis ddavis@cityofmorgantown.org, Ella Belling ella@montrails.org, Frank Gmeindl fgmeindl@gmail.com, Hugh Kierig Hugh.Kierig@mail.wvu.edu, Jim Hunt jimhunt@sunnysideupwv.org, Jim Rye Jim.Rye@mail.wvu.edu, Josh Woods joshua.woods@mail.wvu.edu, Kevin Leyden Kevin.Leyden@mail.wvu.edu, Matt Cross crossnyc@hotmail.com, Michael Simms michael.d.simms@gmail.com, Mike Breiding mike@EpicRoadTrips.us, Nick Hein info@positivespin.org, Roy Nutter roy.nutter@mail.wvu.edu
Subject: Pedestrian Safety Board - another letter in the works
Reply-To: Morgantown Pedestrian Safety Board walkmgw@yahoo.com
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
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
http://www.morgantown.com/ped-safety-board.htm
Bikeboard mailing list Bikeboard@cheat.org http://cheat.org/mailman/listinfo/bikeboard
-
Frank Gmeindl -
Graber, Stephen -
Gunnar Shogren -
Ryan Post