N&R follows up High Point Enterprise reporting on the city’s plan to a section of Montlieu Avenue –which only carries 5,000 vehicles per day —- to accommodate High Point University expansion plans.
Partner that with the fact that the city is seriously considering Andres Duany’s plan to put Main Street on a diet:
City officials received eight submittals from firms interested in performing a study on how to implement the street diet. Transportation Director Mark McDonald said negotiations are ongoing with one firm, Kimley-Horn & Associates Inc. of Raleigh, to do the study for about $115,000.
The study would examine all the issues surrounding how to diet the portion of N. Main Street between Lexington and Montlieu avenues.
McDonald said current traffic volume on this stretch is “pushing the capacity of the road as it exists right now.” About 25,000 vehicles a day travel through the intersection of N. Main Street and Lexington Avenue.
The volume drops to about 22,000 vehicles a day at N. Main Street and Parkway Avenue and to about 18,000 south of this intersection.Going from four to two lanes would cause a substantial amount of traffic to find alternate routes to bypass the area, he said. Streets to the east and west of N. Main Street are inadequate to carry heavy traffic volume bypassing Uptowne, McDonald said.
Road diets are one of the more popular new urbanist fads designed to get everyone out of their automobiles, and desperate cities like High Point are all to eager to jump on board. Don’t get me wrong —as I’ve written before — I don;t think all of Duany’s ideas for HP are bad. Problem is one plan –the ‘pink code’ –which has the best risk-return ratio doesn’t seem to be generating as much enthusiasm among city leaders.
