C-Streets Ped and Bike Improvement Maps Now Online
Decatur Metro | September 30, 2011 | 4:01 pm
If you attended the city’s open house on Monday this is all old hat to you. But if you didn’t, you’ll want to check out this new city webpage which features maps, fact sheets and a general overview of pedestrian safety and bike improvements to the Commerce/Clairemont/Church Street corridors.
There’s even a questionnaire that was handed out at the session, which you can fill out and return to the city if you want to give official input to the project.
The developmental future of Commerce Drive is interesting to ponder. It was built as a way to funnel cars around the heart of downtown Decatur. It’s massive width tells the most ancient parts of your brain that it’s built for speed. These mockups seem to indicate that transportation is still a key element of Commerce’s future, it’s just that peds and cyclists take up a larger footprint on the landscape.
But could Commerce ever become downtown Decatur’s third (Trinity is the second, IMO) east-west “A” street, extending the city’s downtown of walkable shops and restaurants? (Just to be clear, this is my question, not the city’s)
Never say never, but urban development around Commerce is all rather new, with no older, ped-friendly examples to get the ball rolling. Slowing traffic and allowing more shoulder room for peds and cyclists is certainly a step in that direction. But maybe I’m being too pie-in-the-sky. For now, perhaps it’s best to focus on baby steps. Mitigate the car’s footprint and its speed and then slowly over time, see what other urban elements grow up around it.
h/t: Patch
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No, I think your optimism is warranted. There’s a lot of potential to use the Commerce loop as a basis for a second tier “square” of urban-friendly commerce. I look forward to seeing a before/after article a few years after these plans are implemented. I’ m betting this will be great for business.
The image makes it look like they are opening wiliams street onto church and closing the parking access to McD’s and Burnt Fork. Is that true?
I had assumed that Williams had been closed to Church to reduce cut through traffic.
That would be a great move, IMO, and it wouldn’t surprise me since the Strategic Plan stresses new and restored street connections to help disperse traffic. Not only would Williams cut down on the number of cars now being forced through the Commerce intersections, it would make redevelopment of the McDonalds block more attractive.
I meant the restored connection would be great, btw. Can’t imagine they would remove parking access for adjoining businesses. That would undo the benefits.
Right now this stretch is mostly dedicated to parking lots it seems.
I’m surprised Clairmont is not getting more of a bicycle focus. Perhaps it is outside of the study area, but it needs bike lanes. The last block entering the square seems easy.
Having made my comment, I find it remarakable that everyone (including myself) that drives, walks or rides feels completely competent to voice our all knowing opinon about street configuration, traffic and what it takes to build a better transportation system. Certainly we should have public comment, but the public can arrive at some bad decisions without professional advice.
I would like to see the narrative description of this plan. On the fly, it seems silly to dedicate lanes for on street parking in front of a modern office building with a extensive surface parking lot. While I understand this plan will slow traffic and make Commerce Drive more pedestrian friendly what will be the effect on Ponce? Will drivers lose the incentive to bypass our main pedestrian route as there is no attractive alternative?
A valid concern, but I’m curious how many people actually use it as a by-pass now. I know I do not. And I’m not sure how you’d measure that.
Man running along side car with clipboard: “Sir, are you bypassing Ponce de Leon Ave or are you…pant, pant…turning left onto Clairemont?”
Hmm. I DO use it as a by-pass when going from the north side to the south side. In fact, my children and I have timed it and found that it is always more efficient to use the by-pass even if it is a longer route. I am NOT a fan of suburban style malls and the roads that lead to them but I am a bit worried that changing Commerce from a by-pass would somehow affect the flow on the streets inside it so that they would become more congested and/or pedestrian/bike-unfriendly. I defer to the experts but hope they are looking at all effects, including the unintended ones.
The on-street parking there would not really be intended to serve the current use but, rather, to help facilitate the longer-term desired use. That office building’s surface parking lot is one of the city’s prime development parcels (as noted in the Strategic Plan) which, presumably, would capture its own parking when built but would likely also include pedestrian-focused street-level uses (shop, small office or townhouse frontage) that would benefit from short term parking and buffering from traffic.
I know Commerce was “assembled” as a by-pass but it was cobbled together largely from an existing, distributed street network. By-pass thinking, overall, has carried with it far greater downsides than returns, in terms of enabling sprawl, wounding or killing downtowns, and creating auto-intensive, unwalkable places. Much of what you see in these plans are just steps to restore somewhat our historic pattens, while still managing our current needs and future goals. IMHO, of course.
Not that I know anything about this, but if this area of Commerce were zoned as high density (which it may already be) future developments might resemble more pedestrian focused growth.
Isn’t it interesting that the land users that have assembled on the “top end” of the Decatur “perimeter” – to talk like a radio traffic announcer – are largely outlets of large regional or national business or organizations. Bank of America, Emory, Kroger, DeKalb Medical, McDonald’s, Fidelity (office building) take up over half of the land “up” there (estimate). Interesting thought exercise – would we find ourselves without such a line-up if the character of the road changes? Or if the road changes will the large organizations re-imagine their use of the land?
First Baptist and the cemetery do provide some greenspace, not so much for the Methodist expanse of asphalt.
Good point about the churches. I wonder how we can get them to help the community become more walkable? Anyone agree with me that a walkable community seems more “Christ-like?” I’m no theologian – far from it – but I picture Jesus walking and biking and only driving when necessary. If the Methodists can agree, maybe they can rethink their “un-holy” asphalt expanse.
While I’m at it here . . . I’m looking at DeKalb Medical’s “Hurt to Walk” ad above. Shouldn’t they be ashamed that they are promoting such an unhealthy lifestyle with the bunker that is their downtown Decatur outlet? Together, the Methodists and the medics could turn the Candler/Commerce intersection (across from Kroger) into an urbanist’s dream world, no?
The “bunker” has been there a long time and predates DeKalb Medical’s acquisition. Don’t know much you could do to soften it up. The Methodists, on the other hand, could certainly soften the view of their asphalt at least from the street with a planted median along the edges.
Some of the churches have the equivalent of walk and roll Sunday. But they include carpooling because their congregations include folks who live outside of City of Decatur.
Absolutely an interesting thought exercise. I think that parking lot on the southeast corner of Church and Commerce is key to getting mixed-use up to Commerce.
All of the parking lots in that area are just too big and represent wasted urban space. Eminent domain anyone?
That Kroger needs to stay right where it is (and bring in a fresher produce selection, IMO). I live completely car-free (yes, it’s possible in Atlanta!) and buy 95% of my groceries at that Kroger because I can walk there. I’d imagine that others living even closer to the square do the same.