Good concepts for Washington Ave

From Swamplot today, landscape architecture students reinvision the Washington Ave. corridor.

I wholeheartedly agree with the concept here. Making Washington Ave and Center Street a one-way pair would tremendously help with traffic in that corridor. Volumes are manageable today, but development potential is really limited by the capacity of Washington Ave. Plus, we’re not talking about massive demolitions or unbearable reconstruction, just re-do Center St. first and route half the traffic there, you can fix Washington one half at a time.

As for running the light rail down Washington, I think METRO has made it pretty clear they hope to do so in the future, the East End line ends in a stub on the west side of downtown pointing that direction.

That corridor could really benefit from improved transit service and pedestrian facilities (ie. contiguous wide sidewalks and shade!). The land-use mix is already reaching the point where quality urbanism is starting to happen, a little public investment could really help things reach the next level there.