Anne & I just returned from a weekend in Pittsburgh and one of the things I couldn't help but notice is how much narrower many of their major Streets are in and around Downtown. I'm sure a lot of that is due to the city being designed pre-automobile and the land-locked nature of the geography of the city.
Anyway, wanted to point out a few views to compare and contrast. Penn Avenue, one of the main drags through the cultural district Downtown up to the hip Strip District was primarily 1 travel lane in each direction (or 2 in one direction where it was one-way) with on street parking. Somewhat similar to High Street in the Short North, and what I imagine High Street would look like if it had on-street parking into Downtown. The wider roads in Downtown Pittsburgh were 4 travel lanes, and there generally seemed to be less one-way streets than in Downtown Columbus.
Anyway, just one observation (of many) between the two cities that was made over the weekend, and one I wanted to share as a point of discussion with a few questions:
1. Should Downtown streets in Columbus be narrowed?
2. Should Downtown streets in Columbus be converted to two way?
3. Should Downtown streets in Columbus have on-street metered parking?
4. If narrowed, what should the extra space be used for? (Green medians, bike lanes, transit lanes, wider sidewalks, etc)?
To compare... Pittsburgh:





and Columbus:








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