FAYETTEVILLE — Like a blackboard, if new parking configurations and travel lanes on Block Avenue don’t work, just erase them.
Transportation officials will move forward with plans to renovate the street, but will draw in parking, travel lanes and planting areas in chalk to see how well the new street space works in real traffic situations as well as allow business operators and city officials to come out and weigh in on the effectiveness of the plan. Also, the remaining angle parking will be designed as drive-in parking rather than the rear-end parking introduced on the first section of the street.
Don Marr, Fayetteville chief of staff, compared the project to the expected adjustments nearly any construction project needs to make as it develops.
“We’re in the house and we need a few architectural adjustments now that we’re building it,” Marr told the Fayetteville street committee, which met for a special meeting Monday to revisit the Block Avenue streetscape project to address design changes.
The city’s planning and engineering staff made several recommendations to the committee after repeated comments from residents and committee members who said the 11-foot-wide travel lane is too narrow and rear-in angle parking is unfamiliar and quirky, along with causing the rear-ends of vehicles to hang too far over the sidewalk. For their part, the city’s planning and engineering team stood behind their original design.
“While there’s not a lot of excess space, there is space for all users,” said Chris Brown, Fayetteville city engineer.
Removing the parallel parking on the street seemed to receive the most support since this could be done easily and with relatively little added cost. The move would give drivers more breathing room and free up more spots for delivery vehicles to make stops.
“I hope you tweak it maybe, but don’t mess it up,” said Tom Overbey, who has an office on the street. He was mostly supportive of the renovated Block Avenue project, welcoming the slowed-down traffic it will bring about.
“I think what’s being done is beautiful and helpful,” Overbey told the committee.
“If someone is irritated that they can’t drive 40 mph down Block Street (Avenue), I don’t care,” he added.
Linda McBride, who lives on the street was more critical.
“What you’ve done there is not working,” McBride said, adding, the redesign which shows added concern for pedestrians with its wider sidewalks and mechanisms to slow down traffic is impractical for delivery drivers.
“There’s nowhere for UPS and FedEx to stop unless they block all of the traffic,” McBride said.
Halting or slowing down the project for additional public meetings to discuss the issue further was not what anyone seemed to want. Wholesale changes like two-way traffic on the street received no traction from the committee members or the public, with the exception of Brian Teague, a local land planner.
“I would hate to see anything happen to slow it down,” said Jerry Hall, who lives and works on the street, saying he does not want to see the project hit any other delays. “I think what we’re going to have is so much better than anything we’ve had the last 40 years.”