Best of 2020: A Temporary Street Redesign in Lawrence
For years, Strong Towns has been advocating an approach to growing cities that is flexible, responsive to feedback, scalable, and relentless about addressing the real struggles of people. Within just a few weeks of the pandemic’s first wave in North America, many towns and cities were urgently compelled to adopt just such an approach. The health and safety of residents, and the survival of businesses, demanded it. “For cities dealing with the pandemic, where every week now feels like a new year, the biggest imperative now is to be nimble,” Senior Editor Daniel Herriges wrote back in May. “But we should be this nimble under ordinary circumstances, too, when it comes to small bets. Think of it as rapid prototyping in the service of building better, more thriving places.”
In 2020, we highlighted a number of state and local efforts to be nimble, iterative, and responsive, including Oakland’s open streets program, considered to be one of the country’s best. I especially appreciated Rachel Quednau’s two-part look at a temporary street redesign in Lawrence, Kansas. Lawrence, a midwestern college town, took steps to increase outside space for retail and dining, to give businesses a fighting chance during the pandemic. Yet the work didn’t stop there: they continued to learn and adapt. Part One was published in late July, far enough into the process to draw our four key lessons, but with much of the summer and autumn still left to see how residents and businesses liked the changes in downtown Lawrence. Part Two was published in November. It looked closer at how Lawrence had evaluated the success of the program, whether business owners and customers were happy with it, and which parts of the redesign had been extended, revised, or reversed. Lawrence’s story should give other communities ideas for what to get right…but also how to get better. — John Pattison, Content Manager
A cafe in Lawrence has installed seating, lights, umbrellas and tables in their temporarily expanded space in the street. (Source: Gould Evans)
4 Lessons from a Temporary Street Redesign Process
Excerpt:
One concern that came up during the street redesign process involved parking. [Planning firm] Gould Evans’ response was to create wayfinding signs that would direct people coming into the Lawrence downtown toward the over 150 public parking spots in the downtown corridor.
That’s a valuable lesson for others who may want to make street adjustments—whether to create space for outdoor dining, bike lanes, or something else: While you might see an abundance of parking and be frustrated by those who raise parking concerns, sometimes small gestures like showing people that there actually is considerable parking can assuage worries.
The temporary nature of this street redesign has allowed the city and Downtown Lawrence Incorporated to shift course as some businesses requested a return to the former angled parking arrangement outside their building due to a lack of use of the outside space and concerns about decreased walking space. Other businesses—restaurants and bars in particular—are fully utilizing their additional outside seating areas and more food businesses are joining their numbers.
How’s that temporary street redesign your city started this spring doing now?
Excerpt:
The initial redesign of Mass Street turned angled parking into parallel, creating a small strip of additional space between the cars and sidewalk.
To begin with, it was vital that this street redesign be fashioned in a temporary manner because that allowed the city to adjust things throughout the course of the summer as they received feedback from businesses and downtown patrons. [Gould Evans architect Whitney Lang] explained that the initial design where sidewalk space was expanded into a small strip of road next to parallel-parked cars created “this goofy sawtooth space” which was something of “a tripping hazard” (see the picture on the right).
Another issue that arose during the first months of the project was that the city wanted a uniform application of the street redesign along the whole downtown Mass Street corridor. While she understands the desire for a standardized approach, Lang says, that just didn’t make sense for downtown businesses’ diverse needs.
In the end, the city developed a process by which individual businesses could apply to take over angled parking spaces in front of their store and use them as outdoor seating, leaving the remaining parking in place. “What we have now are maybe 20 little parklets that restaurants and bars have put up along Mass Street,” says Lang. “In most of the cases, [businesses] have built a platform at the same elevation as the sidewalk.” This eliminates the issue of the uncomfortable jump from sidewalk into street and allows for businesses that would prefer parking at their door (like barbershops, for example) to keep it.
Rachel Quednau serves as Program Director at Strong Towns. Trained in dialogue facilitation and mediation, she is devoted to building understanding across lines of difference. Previously, Rachel worked for several organizations fighting to end homelessness and promote safe, affordable housing at the federal and local levels. Rachel also served as Content Manager for Strong Towns from 2015-2018. A native Minnesotan and honorary Wisconsinite, Rachel received a Masters in Religion, Ethics, and Politics from Harvard Divinity School and a Certificate in Conflict Transformation from the Boston Theological Interreligious Consortium, both in 2020. She currently lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with her husband and young son. One of her favorite ways to get to know a new city is by going for a walk in it.