Stone Avenue's 65 MPH problem

By Charles Sowell  

MARCH 29, 2010 10:46 a.m. (1)

About 400 cars were recently clocked on Stone Avenue going faster than 65 miles per hour, the speed limit is 35, Rick Hall a traffic engineer with Dover, Kohl & Partners told about 100 people at a wrap-up conference on early work on the Stone Avenue Master Plan.

“It points out the need for changes to make Stone a walkable, liveable street,” he said.

The wide, multi-lane, roads with sweeping curves and no real impediments to speeding is typical of designs done in the 1960s and 1970s when moving people through an area and not to the area were considered paramount by traffic engineers.

Victor Dover, principal with Dover, Kohl & Partners told the audience that all of the drawings and concepts being presented at Earle Street Baptist were preliminary.

Hired by the city to create a master plan for Stone, Dover, Kohl is one of the premier urban planning firms in the country.

Designers have spent much of the past week cooped up in the old Wachovia bank office at 225 East Stone conducting walking tours and meeting with residents to get a better feel for what they want their neighborhood to look like in the future.

Much of what was presented Thursday looked a lot like today’s downtown Greenville and the early work with residents of the area is illustrative of why the city’s business district has become a magnet for pedestrians and shoppers.

Today Stone is just starting to recover from a long slide, Dover said. How that recovery happens is the driving force behind the work his firm will do.

“The time to get excited about zoning isn’t when a builder is pushing his plans across the counter at City Hall,” he told the audience at the first public session last week.

Dover, Khol has conducted a walking tour of the study region (details at http://www.planstoneavenue.org/), held several public session at the old bank building and Earle Street Baptist, and will now head back to their headquarters in Coral Gables, Fla., to further refine the plan.

From the evidence presented Thursday night the streetscapes will be heavy on trees and bike lanes. Stone and Main’s current four-lane configuration would likely be pared to three lanes and a turn lane and sidewalks improved greatly to help increase walkability.

How the plan actually parses out will depend on months of work and engineering, Dover said, and citizen input will be integral throughout the process.

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Jeff Gordon  - Driver   |2010-04-13 14:29:59 65 m.p.h. in a 35 has anyone notified the Greenville police or should we wait for a death Hmmm.. Reply

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