Woodfin Street reconfigured for parallel parking

[orulz]

See the article.

As long as I can remember, Woodfin Street downtown has never seen much traffic, certainly not enough to justify its four-lane configuration. When I-240 was built, Woodfin was reconfigured and made to connect with Oak Street, making it less of a major road. Recently, at the intersection of Oak and College, a single-lane roundabout was built, so the four-lane setup on Woodfin became even more pointless. The street is much wider than it needed to be, so I'm glad to see that the city added these parallel parking spaces.

That part of downtown desperately needs more of a grid, so extending these improvements beyond just re-striping might be nice too. I'd like to see the Woodfin/Oak connection undone, and Woodfin Street extended to Charlotte Street, opposite the eastbound I-240 onramp. This road would either have curve a bit, or else some property would have to be taken from the YMCA. The 'Y' could be a more pedestrian-friendly design, and it's a bit small so maybe they'll want to rebuild at some point, but not any time soon.

Bring Oak Street to a T intersection with Woodfin. The eastbound I-240 off-ramp could be a quarter-loop ending at that intersection of Oak and Woodfin, but that might put too much traffic through the roundabout. The other option would be a half-loop east of the bridge, intersecting Charlotte and aligning directly into WB Woodfin.

[archiham04]

would your connector go across the church property?

[orulz]

would your connector go across the church property?

Yes. It would. It would cut right through the church parking lot. The church's main entrance would face the intersection of Oak and Woodfin streets. I think it's a real shame that the main entrance of Ellington's beautiful First Baptist Church is now consigned to address a parking lot rather than a public right-of-way ever since the freeway came to town.

The church could be compensated for the loss of land and parking with land that is now occupied by the EB I-240 off-ramp (which would be removed.) The problem is, I can see people complaining about having to cross a public street to get from the parking lot to the church, and how it's not safe, and oh God, the CHILDREN!!...

But then again, there are about a million churches in the country where people cross a public street between the parking and the church.