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Greening of GR


GRDadof3

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This topic covers anything related to:

Greening and green space: parks; streetscape; public space; rooftops; publicly accessible

private space; trees; beautification

Please leave comments or discuss things you'd like to see improved or enhanced in these areas.

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I'll put this idea here since it's a street furniture issue.

Public recycle bins.

Festival had them this year. The East Lansing folk festival had them.

If we make it easy for people to sort their plastic coffee tops from the cardboard cups, it will help raise awareness and encourage more recycling.

Probably most practical for large public events generating a lot of refuse.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Another member first came up with the idea in another thread, but I liked it and feel it would be good to bring into here as well. The original poster and myself think Grand Rapids, especially around downtown, would look great with conifers and other green-in-the-winter trees. I really cannot think of any cities which use them; it may give us a unique edge for our climate, especially considering how long our winters are.

Would they help calm the otherwise harsh winter winds? That could be a huge benefit.

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I think evergreens certainly have their place. I'm not sure they would look good or function well as sidewalk liners (they tend to grow out almost as much as they grow up and lack the canopy feel) but they could be used along walls, around parking lots, and where streets terminate. I'd really like to see some along the Grand River as more attention is paid to the corridor. I know some tree species are selected because they can take heavy abuse like having salt dumped at their base every winter, so maybe the key is plant more vulnerable types in the pockets away from streets.

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Ball/Perkins Park

Ball/Perkins Park is an 82-acre park is located in northeast Grand Rapids between Knapp and Leonard Streets and Ball and Perkins Avenues. The site has a unique mix of habitat types includ­ing successional old field, secondary woodland, primary woodland and two wetland types: swamp and marsh. It could provide mixed active and passive uses with an emphasis on environmental protection and interpretation. The public is invited to a design charrette to help in developing the Master Plan for Ball/Perkins Park.

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I was also thinking as a low-cost idea to spruce up an area - would it be possible to be able to paint over some of the existing brick streets...and what I mean about this is painting some sort of pattern down the street kind of like how you make a pattern with different colored bricks on the sidewalks but doing something special for the street itself. Perhaps a pattern could be made on Monroe Center where you have one strip of the actual road in one color/design - and the side parking on the street in a different.

Just a thought.

I even found an example of a company that paints over brick pavement that has special adhesives to protect from weed growth and damage...and you could get a neat design with it - two birds with one stone right there.

The website is called http://www.ejpaving.com/streetprint.htm

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Welcome GRhappens! Monroe Center was a pedestrian mall for some time through the 80's and 90's, and was reopened to one way traffic because it was an absolute failure marked with a lot of vacancies. A lot of downtown pedestrian malls have made the switch and reopened to limited traffic, because small retailers can't survive without curbside parking, or at least the ability for people to drive by and see their storefront.

So I don't think the city would look at that again. But keep the ideas coming!

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