SAFER STREET SIMULATION Randolph Avenue - Enid, Oklahoma Enid Main Street Rural Health Projects, Inc. TSET Healthy Living Program Oklahoma Municipal League OU Institute for Quality Communities
Safer Street Simulation & Retail-Oriented Road Diet Main Street Enid and Rural Health Projects, Inc. received a matching grant from the Oklahoma Municipal League to seek assistance with a street design demonstration. During Fall 2017 and Spring 2018, the project partners collaborated with the University of Oklahoma Institute for Quality Communities to prepare a street design concept and plan for a temporary installation inspired by the Better Block Project. The team selected a block of Randolph Avenue, an important downtown street. After seeking approval and assistance from the City of Enid, the project partners began to prepare materials and assemble components for the demonstration. The team scheduled the "Safer Street Simulation and Retail-Oriented Road Diet" for June 21-22, 2018 to coincide with the Oklahoma Municipal League's Mayors Summer Conference, so dozens of Oklahoma mayors also got to tour the project. On Thursday, June 21, city crews prepared the street for the simulation and in the early morning the volunteer team began to install the project. Volunteers included representatives from the TSET Healthy Living Program from around the region, local Main Street supporters, and members of the local Realtor association. Throughout Thursday, the team observed the street conditions and made minor changes to the design concept. City officials and the public toured the project with a special event Thursday evening. The installation remained overnight and through Friday morning before being disassembled. This report contains an overview of the street design concepts tested during the project, helpful tips about the materials and techniques used, and some reflections on how the project team evaluated the success of the project.
Breezeway Pocket Park
Variety of Businesses
Existing Mid-Block Crossing
Across Enid, Randolph Avenue is an important through street that is one of the main gateways to downtown. In downtown Enid, Randolph crosses along the north side of the courthouse square. Wide sidewalks and nice landscaping around the square make Randolph a pleasant place for notable cafĂŠs and other businesses. It's a signature street, and a place where people can afford to slow down and enjoy the beauty of the city. One highlight of Randolph Avenue is the Breezeway Pocket Park, which also has a mid-block crosswalk. It's an important pedestrian passage. Retail-Oriented Road Diet? With four lanes and parking, Randolph is an extremely wide street from curb to curb. Traffic counts along Randolph indicate the street could be right-sized to two lanes in order to encourage slower traffic and create a safer, more comfortable shopping environment.
Minimal Shade
Gateway to Downtown Square
Oversized Street
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Road Diets: Reallocating Road Space
At 110' of right-of-way, Randolph Avenue already has a uniquely wide cross-section. That means Randolph has plenty of room for its ample sidewalks and angled parking, both good assets for retail businesses along the street.
What could you do if you traded in two travel lanes and reused the space?
It also means Randolph has plenty of space for four lanes for moving vehicles. However, Randolph's traffic volume does not necessarily require all four lanes to be used for moving vehicles. If a high-quality downtown experience were prioritized over moving cars through town, reducing the number of lanes would be a good first step.
Amenity Zone: A wider sidewalk area can also allow the city to expand the amenity zone, where you might find street trees to create shade, lighting to enhance night safety, benches, trash cans, and bike parking.
Road Diets are a design tool that ask this question: How can we make sure the street space is allocated in the way that makes the most sense for achieving the goals of the block?
Median: Repurposing lanes for a median may have benefits, as shown on the facing page.
What would you do if you could reallocate up to 20' of space along Randolph?
Wider Sidewalk: Downtown business benefits from wide sidewalks. Sidewalks should be wide enough for cafĂŠs and retail displays while still allowing people to pass by comfortably. 15' minimum is desired.
Bicycle Infrastructure: Sometimes lane space gives way to a new bicycle lane or protected bicycle path. This works best if the path or lane can be continued for several blocks. Turn Lane: On a busy street, a left turn lane at the intersection may actually help keep traffic flowing better than a directional travel lane.
Adding a landscaped median softens the appearance of the street. Medians also create a protected area in the middle of the street that works very well with mid-block crosswalks, as shown in this image from Petoskey, Michigan. If traffic is slow enough, people might even feel comfortable stopping at a bench in the median.
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Street Design Concepts
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Kenwood Avenue Traffic Adjustment: Many people indicated that the five-way intersection of Randolph, Washington, and Kenwood is a confusing place to navigate on foot or in a car. The concept plan indicated a potential realignment of Kenwood to form a 90-degree three-way intersection with Washington, but this concept was not implemented during the street simulation. However, the traffic signal at this intersection was replaced with a simple stop sign, which did not cause traffic problems.
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Curb Extensions: Intersections in much of downtown have beautiful landscaped curb extensions, but this gateway at Randolph and Washington is lacking. The simulation added painted curb extensions to help frame this downtown gateway and slow traffic.
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Landscaped Median: The amount of road space dedicated to moving vehicles is very wide on Randolph. The simulation demonstrated replacing the center travel lanes with a median made of painted shipping pallets and donated potted plants from local stores.
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Parklet: In some places, it may be worthwhile to give up one or two parking spots in favor of an expanded sidewalk zone in the form of a parklet. Parklets can be constructed in a way that doesn't interfere with the existing drainage configuration of the curbs.
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Reconfigured Crosswalk: The current mid-block crosswalk is an excellent feature. Adding a median offers the opportunity to use an offset crosswalk configuration. Pedestrians cross in two stages and the realignment allows for a new curb extension at the alley to receive the crosswalk.
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Randolph Independence
Washington
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Breezeway Pocket Park
Reconfigure Mid-Block Crossing
Crosswalk Art
No-Smoking Zone Demo Curb Bumpout Road Diet for Slower Travel Landscaped Median
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Additional Concepts
Crosswalk Art & Sidewalk Art
Pop-Up Shop
Cities across the nation have been experimenting with creative crosswalks that introduce new character to the district, while still providing good visual contrast to keep drivers alert to the crosswalk. For the simulation, the crosswalk was painted to look like piano keys as a nod to the live music that often occurs in the Breezeway.
Adding pop-up shops in vacant or underutilized spaces is part of a trend toward restoring businesses back to downtown. Especially during events, temporary uses like pop-up shops and food trucks can supplement the activity on the block and allow entrepreneurs to test new ideas.
Sidewalks can have art, too. For the simulation, the verses of local poets were transformed into stencils and painted over the sidewalk with a special paint that only appears when wet. Visitors hunted poetry with watering cans.
For the simulation, Tammy Wilson hosted a pop-up shop in a vacant storefront.
No-Smoking Zone
Information and Interactive Signs
Existing state laws prohibit smoking within 15 feet of public entrances. For a downtown street, that means much of the sidewalk is typically a no-smoking zone. Many people are unaware of this public health effort.
During the simulation, a number of interactive signs allowed the public to interact with the event and learn more about the street features. Some signs had maps with special tools to show how far someone can walk or bike in five or ten minutes. Another sign had a "scoreboard" allowing people to mark down how many steps they achieved today. Other signs explained street design features like parklets and mid-block crosswalks.
Volunteers and TSET Healthy Living Program professionals used temporary paint to mark these no-smoking zones.
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Process Points
Find Your Partners: Better Block-style street simulations need a lot of helpers. This project included local nonprofits with established relationships with the city government and local business community, experience planning healthy living and downtown events, and willing volunteer networks. The project also sought direct participation from the city and external assistance for street design concepts. Meet With City Regularly: Street design takes place in the realm of your city government. Local engineering, planning, police, and fire staff know a lot about streets and can help get things right while keeping the event safe. Meet With the Block: Nobody knows the block better than the people who spend time there every day. Keep a dialogue with the block and see how businesses want to get involved. Identify Plan and Materials Needed: Once you have your team and supporters, start outlining the scope of the project. Is there an existing streetscape plan or bike lane proposal you're hoping to test? Are there particular opportunities or challenges you want to highlight? Start thinking about the materials and preparation that can be accomplished prior to the day of the event.
Seek Approval: Keep the city on board by going through formal channels to get the event permitted properly. Name It and Publish A Date: Commit to a date, come up with a catchy and descriptive name, and start advertising. Manage Volunteers: Use your project partners' volunteer networks to bring together volunteers. Volunteer nights can bring people together to work on preparation tasks for the event. Find Programming: If you want to attract lots of people to experience the project, you can program this like a typical event with food, music, and activities. Record and Evaluate: During the event, find ways to record the results of the project. You may even find ways to adjust the project based on feedback before the event is over.
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Materials and Installation
Mixing Street and Sidewalk Paint
Applying Street and Sidewalk Paint
Washable paint was used for new pavement markings delineating curb extensions, parking spots, and nosmoking zones. In a bucket, mix:
For best results, sweep the area to remove gravel and other debris before painting. You may mark the location of the line you are painting with chalk before painting. Using a string can help get an accurate radius on a curve.
• One part corn starch • One part washable tempera paint of desired color • One or two parts water Test the paint on your target surface and allow paint to dry before adjusting the recipe according to the results.
For striping road lines, apply the paint with a 4" roller brush. For comfort and ease, use an extension handle to avoid bending down. For curb extensions, you may want to include reflective cones or pool noodles to give the edges of the curb extension some height.
Off-Site Assembly of Crosswalk The team pre-painted the crosswalk on rolls of black roof underlayment that is available in 3' width. Cut two strips of the desired crosswalk length from the roof underlayment material, then attach them with Gorilla tape to create a 6' wide piece of the correct length to roll across the street. Paint the crosswalk design off site. When it is ready, roll the crosswalk into place and fix to the pavement using Gorilla tape.
Stencils and Water Repelling Spray Paint The team used a laser cutter to prepare chipboard stencils of poetry by local writers, event icons like the shopping lady in the crosswalk, and the name of Enid, Oklahoma. A special spray paint over these stencils makes the messages appear after a rain. For the event, people could check out a spray bottle or watering can to hunt for poems and icons on the sidewalk.
Information Signs The team used open-source designs from Wikiblock to cut the components for the sign out of a sheet of plywood using a CNC router machine. The team used a laser cutter to cut stencils out of chipboard for all text elements on the signs, then spray painted the text onto the sign. For the maps and color graphics on the boards, images were printed onto an outdoor-safe vinyl with adhesive back. Signs that invited people to draw used a black chalk paint finish. Map signs came with scale tools showing walking or biking distance. The scale tools were created with a laser cutter and acrylic plastic material. Keep in mind, on a windy day you may need sandbags, concrete blocks, or another weight to keep the base of the sign steady.
Median Over 100 shipping pallets were donated to the project team by a local volunteer's farm. During the weeks prior to the event, many volunteers spent hours painting these pallets in bright colors for high visibility and attractiveness. After city crews placed vertical cones to close the center two lanes of the street, volunteers began placing pallets. A pallet-jack was a useful piece of equipment for rolling stacks of pallets out of the on-site storage space to the street. Pallets were spaced regularly in two rows to create the shape of the median. Reflective cones were a good safety feature, especially since the median stayed in place overnight. Some potted plants were donated by a local business to represent the possibility of landscaping for the median. These colorful pallets were easy to recycle. Many people from the community wanted to pick up pallets after the event for their own DIY projects and ideas.
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Evaluation and Reflection
The team members and volunteers frequently paused to evaluate and reflect on the project. There was some negative feedback. Overall, the reaction to the project was positive and the conceptual designs had no serious negative impacts on traffic flow on Randolph Avenue. People walking or driving through the block provided real-time feedback. If possible, the team would adjust the design installation to reflect the feedback. For example, when a number of drivers noted that extended cab vehicles parked along the street sometimes made the travel lane too narrow. Also, people backing out of parking spots felt somewhat uncomfortable. To respond to this feedback, the team narrowed the median to make more room. City officials toured the project to provide comments from the municipality's perspective. City staff was helpful as a partner throughout the installation of the project. City crews arrived early to manage the traffic control setup. During the installation, a fire crew drove a large fire department vehicle through the project. City officials also adjusted traffic signals to create four-way stops at either end of the block during the project. To measure the impact on traffic after removing two lanes and changing traffic signals, team members observed traffic flow during rush hour at each intersection. They recorded that during rush hour, the longest wait to pass through an intersection was 45 seconds. Traffic signals with red lights resulted in approximately the same wait time. Finally, survey cards were available for people who attended the public event during the night of the installation. Survey cards also provided valuable feedback for the project team.
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Next Steps
Testing one block for two days was an excellent and informative experiment. Enid's leaders should continue a discussion about slowing traffic and improving the pedestrian experience on streets that pass through downtown Enid: Incremental Changes One example of a small incremental change would be moving downtown from a grid of traffic signals to a grid of 2-way and 4-way stops. Stop signs are a more affordable mechanism. They also allow more freedom of movement for both pedestrians and cars, while keeping a check on speeds. Complicated intersections like those along Kenwood may present opportunities for future tests using paint, tape, and cones, or small permanent interventions. Visionary Streetscapes Some permanent streetscape plans could be contemplated for downtown Enid. Designs should strongly consider road diets to reduce the number of lanes on key downtown streets and reallocate space for other uses, like landscaped medians or expanded sidewalks. Broken Arrow's Rose District and Shawnee's downtown streetscapes offer good precedents for constructing high-quality streetscapes through public initiatives. Potential Grants The AARP Livable Communities Challenge Grant provides small grants for construction of incremental improvements. Shawnee received funding through this program for intersection improvements, and Vinita has received funding for constructing a public space similar to the Breezeway.
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Collaborators
Main Street Enid Kelly Tompkins, Executive Director Cammeron Kaiser, Events & Communication Coordinator Whitney Hall, Design Committee Chair Rural Health Projects, Inc. Jay Sharp, Lead Program Coordinator Stephanie Pendergraft, Program Coordinator TSET Healthy Living Program Sharon Neal, Senior Program Officer Melinda Mercado, Payne County Oklahoma Municipal League Mike Fina, Executive Director Nancee Morris, Operations & Business Development
University of Oklahoma Gibbs College of Architecture Institute for Quality Communities Shane Hampton, Executive Director Hope Mander, Associate Director Ron Frantz, Environmental Design Coordinator Rachel Ware, Graduate Assistant Amy Hostetter, Undergraduate Assistant Amanda Hall, Landscape Architecture Student
Report Prepared By: The University of Oklahoma Institute for Quality Communities Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture 830 Van Vleet Oval, Suite 165 Norman, Oklahoma 73019-6141