Today is the day that consultants unveil the "new & improved" plans for converting one-way streets to two-way. The new plans are to be seen on the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission website by 10am today, but the DDN has the scoop in this morning’s paper…
As I had mentioned last week, I had the chance to meet with very small group of city planners and downtown stakeholders – including John Gower (Director of Planning & Community Development for the CIty of Dayton). Mr. Gower is somebody that definitely "gets" how a downtown should be as far as streets and development (and is a supporter of DMM – thanks John!), and he assured us that he and his staff had steered the consultants (Tetra Tech) in a better direction than they had originally been following. Those of you that happened to be at the last public meeting know that the proposals were a disaster as they would have gotten rid of 26%-83% of our street parking. Stay tuned as I will be attending today’s public meeting and updating this post with the new plans.
Link: Dayton street plan won’t gobble parking spots.
The final recommendation for reconfiguring Dayton’s downtown streets, to be unveiled today, will propose converting 16 blocks from one-way to two-way traffic and eliminate only six parking spaces.
UPDATE: Well, the plans are available at the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission’s website. I haven’t been able to digest it all, but it appears that this latest proposal is one that everybody can live with. It is great that we will have bike lanes that connect with our existing trail system along the river (the best in the region!), and it appears that we won’t be losing any parking besides a few spots (notably on Patterson Blvd). Not all one-way streets are being converted (St. Clair is one street being left as a one-way), and the streets that are being converted would definitely see traffic slowed down – a good thing for pedestrians. All in all it looks pretty good to me.
We would really like to hear what you think of these latest plans after you check them out on the MVRPC website. Do you think this is a good plan?
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