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Rendering of a conceptual makeover for High Street — From the 2010 Downtown Strategic Plan.
At yesterday evening’s Columbus City Council meeting, an ordinance was approved to allocate $515,000 toward the second half of an ongoing study of transportation-based upgrades for Downtown Columbus streets. The plan is being developed by architectural firm Burgess and Niple and will include design concepts for the following:
- On-street parking on High Street through Downtown.
- The two-way conversion of Front Street north of Broad.
- A road diet for Broad Street through Downtown.
- Evaluating Downtown one-way streets for complete street concepts.
- Reviewing on-street parking capacity throughout all of Downtown.
- Reviewing Downtown streets for the inclusion of bike lanes.
There is no firm timeline scheduled for the completion of this study, but Rick Tilton, the Assistant Director at The Department of Public Service for The City of Columbus says that they hope to have some form of on-street parking implimented on High Street by the end of the year.
“Once the study is complete, we’ll need to vet it with Mayor’s Office, City Council, COTA, and other groups,” he explained. “We’ll also host some sort of public meeting or open house so that the public and look at the study and comment on it.”
In 2010, the Downtown Strategic Plan proposed several of these concepts for review, including major makeovers for High Street and Broad Street (pictured above and below). The upcoming Downtown Action Plan being developed by the City of Columbus Division of Mobility Options will also build upon the 2006 Downtown Columbus Circulation Study and the 2008 Bicentennial Bikeways Plan.
For more information about the Downtown Strategic Plan, visit www.DowntownColumbus.com.
Rendering of a conceptual makeover for Broad Street — From the 2010 Downtown Strategic Plan.
Sounds like a fun study to work on.
Wish the planning would study updates to E Broad through the Near East Side. Bexley already has a pleasant and updated streetscape and this would allow for a seamless transition into Columbus.
I know it’s not probally going to happen.. but I would like to see roads that are 5 lanes wide (4th, 3rd, long, and spring) be converted to 2 lanes in each direction with a street car in the middle lane. With On street parking and bike lanes? @ #wishful-thinking
What @Pro Se said
Has anyone seen the new Glick Peace Walk in downtown Indianapolis? I’d love to see something like that here…
@GentlemanGene, yes, the Glick Peace cultural trail is really quite nice. Simple, but completely effective. It’s a great example of how transportation needs can enhance a downtown and spur development, as the trail in Indy has done.
@Pickerington_Kyle,
I think you just asked for a five-lane, 52-foot wide road to be converted to about a 96-foot wide road (16 feet for parking on both sides, 10 feet for two 5-foot bike lanes, 44 feet for four 11-foot travel lanes, 12 feet for a streetcar lane, and maybe 14 feet for a station platform in the middle of the road). I’m going to ignore the problems of having a single streetcar track and the lack of left turn lanes.
@johnwirtz. How big are the sidewalks?
2 feet.
i would be cool with streets like the ones the are proposing for the 71/70 one-way feeder streets. Still one-way but with curb bump-outs, on-street parking, sidewalks, lotsa trees. they look real good for one-ways
I wish they would do the proposal to I-70 by putting land bridges over it, and removing the 3rd street off ramp.
The problem I have with one-way streets is they often become drag strips where people are very comfortable weaving across lanes, ignoring pedestrians. However, with the amount of vehicle traffic downtown, you unfortunately probably need a few one-way or at least a few timed traffic signals to allow a large amount of traffic to move quickly out of downtown to avoid big traffic jams.
I don’t think one way streets are necessary at all Downtown. There are plenty of suburban roads with traffic jams (Sawmill for example) and I don’t see anyone rushing to convert those roads to one-way streets.
These are good ideas. Indy has done some great thing with their downtown we could pick up.
Granted – I’m not objective – but I would like to see a food pod set up in an area slightly off the beaten path that needs some food traffic – kind of like South Congress in Austin in the early days.
Looks like no rail will be included…is the possibility of a Columbus rail system totally dead in the water? I haven’t anything one way or the other so I just assumed everyone had given up.
Good to see.
Hopefully Main street isn’t forgotten on all this. We were never meant to be a one-way street and only have been for a relatively short time (since 1989-ish).
Not too optimistic about any feeder street going back to two way however, my understanding is FEMA guidelines are a major stumbling block on this and given that 3rd and 4th are also US highways (US 23) through downtown the city gov’t doesn’t have as much say so on what happens to them as opposed to most other city streets.
Oh, the idea of Broad St. narrowing gives me warm fuzzies. No inner city road should be 8 lanes wide – all for cars. Maybe in 5 yrs, we’ll finally see a difference :)
Thanks, Walker :)
@walker re: converting congested streets in the burbs to one-way — it only works (if it ever does) with a dense grid system, so that a pair of nearby streets handle traffic in alternate directions. The suburbs (and newer annexations to Columbus) are apples and oranges compared to the pre-50′s portions of Columbus.
@OSUPhantom – This planning effort has nothing to do with rail transit, so it’s exclusion doesn’t mean anything either way.
@CampusLongTimer – Of course the comparison isn’t apples to apples, but I still think it’s a question worthy of asking. Are our one-way streets truly necessary? If there are other systems that work out there (be it in the suburbs or in other urban areas) shouldn’t they be considered?
Our one-way pairs Downtown are currently configured to act as emergency evacuation routes for rush hour commuters. Get them in, get them out. Is that what is best for a healthy and vibrant urban community?
pittsburgh and sandusky have streets with giant lights above them with Xs or arrows. they can switch the directions of lanes by changing the lights. It can be a little confusing at first, but would work well in a place like Neil in the arena district that doesn’t need NINE lanes all tghe time