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.
