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Fayetteville City Plan 2025


Mith242

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There are some mixed use developments planned for that area currently. They are a year or so away, but you can see some progress underway when you drive through there. But, this whole thing seems a little crazy to me. I mean taking away lanes on college ave and widening sidewalks??? I think college needs to be widened, not reduced! It must be a long range plan, but I drive through there quit a bit and I think that this area needs to have a middle (turn) lane at least, and not lose a lane or two. I do understand the higher density and mixed-use buildings, and I think that is a wonderful idea. BUT, I can only see one lane traffic, north and southbound, bumber to bumber for miles. With this much slow traffic most people will try and avoid this area. This could lead to more traffic on the 'back roads' and lead to more congestion. I guess we can all sit back and see what happens.

Now if this is being done by the Dover-Kohl plan then you wouldn't really be losing lanes on a multi lane boulevard. You'd have three lanes in the center for faster traffic and then two divided side lanes for slower traffic. I also think some areas have sufficient sidewalks but I think some areas of College are still lacking in many ways as far as a sidewalk is concerned. What worries me is that a $6 Mil figure still sounds a bit low to me is they are considering this multi lane boulevard idea. I'd really like to hear more about what's going on. Maybe at some future date itk can let us know something that won't get him in trouble. Fayetteville will probably have to work with the AHTD on this.

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Northwest Arkansas is destined to sprawl. Concentrated efforts on an already developed section of the city will only drive business away from that section while under construction and by the time improvements are made they'll just need to be improved again. That's the price to pay for not having future-minded leaders in city and county government. What's that old saying... "lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part".

I know it will cause problems but I still think it is worth the effort. What they did on Dickson worked pretty well. Obviously though College is a different situation and will be tricker to do because Dickson isn't a major thoroughfare. Right now though I think the biggest focus is being put on renovating structures along College. Changing the actual street might be further in the future.

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I know it will cause problems but I still think it is worth the effort. What they did on Dickson worked pretty well. Obviously though College is a different situation and will be tricker to do because Dickson isn't a major thoroughfare. Right now though I think the biggest focus is being put on renovating structures along College. Changing the actual street might be further in the future.

They could do what businesses in Bentonville and Rogers are doing by just putting faux fronts on the older buildings to make them look bigger and better than they really are. Aesthetics seems to play a major role in a community's growth and rising property values. Even some of the new buildings in Bentonville are actually just short metal buildings with a "Disneyland" exterior. It kind of destroys the joy of walking into a beautiful building knowing that it's actually nothing more than a shed with a candy coating.

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There are some mixed use developments planned for that area currently. They are a year or so away, but you can see some progress underway when you drive through there. But, this whole thing seems a little crazy to me. I mean taking away lanes on college ave and widening sidewalks??? I think college needs to be widened, not reduced! It must be a long range plan, but I drive through there quit a bit and I think that this area needs to have a middle (turn) lane at least, and not lose a lane or two. I do understand the higher density and mixed-use buildings, and I think that is a wonderful idea. BUT, I can only see one lane traffic, north and southbound, bumber to bumber for miles. With this much slow traffic most people will try and avoid this area. This could lead to more traffic on the 'back roads' and lead to more congestion. I guess we can all sit back and see what happens.

I don't think it will be as bad as you envision. It will, however, require the improvement of some of the intersecting streets in this area to handle traffic flow as some of the current traffic will naturally be diverted.

One of the most successful urban in-fill areas of Dallas, West Village, is straddled with two lane, one way streets. The traffic doesn't flow seamlessly, but in many ways, a lot of the traffic is now local, i.e. people traveling to the area specifically to do business and enjoy the pedestrian friendly atmosphere, rather than just passing through. If this type of envrinoment is successfully created for this section of College, the city will reap benefits for years to come in the way of increased property values and increased sales tax revenue.

Think of Magazine Street in New Orleans, which is sort of a thoroughfare. It being two lanes allows for traffic to flow, but it also doesn't overwhelm the street scene and fosters a more peaceful, retail friendly area for pedestrians. The streets in lower South Beach in Miami, while not the most efficient traffic arteries, also create a great streetside atmosphere for shopping, dining, etc. Downtown San Jose is another great example of downsizing a few streets, lining them with trees and creating a vibrant retail and entertainment scene.

Widening College further in this section doesn't make sense to me, if for no other reason because it would require the destruction of more hillside and create more of the problem the city wants to remedy - high speed traffic with almost no room or environment for pedestrians and retail.

From what I have studied of the new transportation master plan, the focus is going to be on improving east-west traffic flow through the city by widening and creating new boulevards. By funneling the through traffic more efficiently out to 540, and extending Gregg to intersect with Dickson, north-south arteries won't be as much of an issue as they are now.

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I have wondered when the city is going to look more into it's east-west roads. But I also agree with DickSonstreetDFW, widening the streets aren't always the way to go. I also think what Fayetteville is going to try to do is encourage more people to go about the city outside of your vehicle. But there are problems like what if you were willing to walk and came along College Ave? Not only is there little incentive to walk to walk along there how easy would it be for you to cross the street? I'm also hoping to see the city put some priority on more of it's bike/walking trails. I realize it may not be much but still I think we need to do what we can first to encourage people to be outside their vehicles. You obviously can't avoid using you vehicle in some instances but every little bit of traffic we take of the roads helps.

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I have wondered when the city is going to look more into it's east-west roads.

Check out the master transportation plan on accessfayetteville.org. There are a lot of east-west thoroughfare plans. It also details the expansion of the Scull Creek Trail, although the pdfs refer to it as "Skull Creek". I believe this is all contingent upon a future bond issue to finance transportation improvements.

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Looks like they've made some additions to the 2025 site. You can basically see the final presentation, without Victor Dover explaing all of what you're looking at though. It's a pretty massive pdf file though, 168 pages. Here's a link the the big pdf file although it will probably take a while to load.

http://cityplan2025.accessfayetteville.org...resentation.pdf

Here's also a link to the main site if anyone is hesitant to try out the big pdf file.

http://cityplan2025.accessfayetteville.org/

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  • 2 months later...

Here's an update for those of you interested. The final 2025 Plan will be happening this Wednesday, May 17th. It will be held at the Public Library from 6-7:30 PM. I'm curious to see the Divinity development get mentioned. maybe I can also try to get some more shots inside the Library as well. :D

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Well crap. It helps if I pay closer attention to the time that I posted. For some reason I thought it was at 7. So I ended up missing it. If someone happened to go, maybe some of our quiet forumers who don't post very often, I'd really like to hear what I missed out on. I really liked the other 2025 meetings I attended. I was curious to see what the followup meeting was going to cover.

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