RECENT COMMENTS

A beautiful and unfunded vision of Jefferson Avenue

The final report for “Greening Jefferson Avenue” (PDF) was recently released. It is a beautiful, entirely unfunded, vision of what Jefferson Avenue could be.

In 2014, the city applied to EPA’s Greening America’s Capitals Program “to create a plan for Jefferson Avenue that would help remedy confusing and unsafe traffic patterns caused by the street’s alignment.” Goals included improving safety for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users, and also to improve stormwater management and spur economic revitalization.

Earlier in 2015, a team from the EPA met with area stakeholders and residents in developing design options for Jefferson Avenue. The design options include:

• Adding bicycle lanes and narrowing travel lanes.
• Incorporating roundabouts and traffic circles to calm traffic.
• Creating curb extensions and perpendicular crosswalks to shorten crosswalk length.
• Adding rain gardens throughout the corridor to reduce stormwater runoff.
• Reconfiguring some intersections to make pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicle traffic patterns more clear.
• Creating a new gateway to the neighborhood at Jefferson Park.
• Providing porous pavements in parking lanes and some minor streets.

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“Typical improvements throughout the corridor include buffered bicycle lanes on both sides of the avenue, porous paving in on-street parking spaces, shelters at bus stops, rain gardens, and street trees. “

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With bike lanes

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I can’t help but notice now that the renderings don’t include the street paint or signage