Three Lanes Means Less Parking on Main Street

So the real question is, even if the promise that Concord Mayor Jim Bouley made of no loss of parking is kept, How will North Main Street merchants react if the lost parking spaces in front of their businesses are replaced by spaces on South Main Street or some remote parking lot?

The Re-Thinking Main Street Plan shows a loss of 34 spaces on North Main Street with a gain of 14 spaces on South Main Street. That’s a net loss of 20 spaces. Ed Roberge, the city’s engineer stated at last nights meeting, that spaces on North Main Street need to be eliminated to meet current government safety and accessibility regulations. In fact, according to Roberge, even if the city keeps the four lane configuration, there will be a loss of parking.

And there’s more good news.

It appears there is a discrepancy between the traffic models Re-Thinking Main Street used in its report and the model used at Tuesday night's committee meeting. The Re-Thinking Main Street model shows a 2 percent reduction over 20 years in traffic on Main Street due to cars diverting to other roads. The model Roberge used shows a 1 percent per year increase in traffic. The Re-Thinking Main Street model shows that even with a 2 percent reduction in traffic, travel time with three lanes will remain about the same as it does today with four lanes. The model the city engineer used didn’t have data on travel time.

The Downtown Complete Streets Improvement Project Advisory Committee is directed by the council to consider the opinions of at least 25 city and private committees, commissions, and groups. There are 10 meetings scheduled before the committee has to have their report completed at their last scheduled meeting, on Nov. 15. Considering no decisions have been made to date the timeline imposed by the mayor and city council looks like a scary 17 headed monster getting ready to devour this committee.

Too much to be done. Too little time. Even with public input and great suggestions, will there be enough time to make changes to the Re-Thinking Main Street plan as stated in the grant? And even if there is the time to form a consensus for change will the Feds go along with it?

A couple of thoughts.

Construction is slated to start mid-September 2013. The plan is to start with street infrastructure work before shutting down for holiday shopping and the winter. So how much work is going to get accomplished in a month and a half and how is that going to effect the published completion date of mid December 2014?

The next meeting is on Thursday at the city council chambers and will start at 7:30 p.m. The committee will be talking about the private financing component of the project. 

Remember you can go to the city’s website for information regarding committee meeting times and for information regarding this project: ci.concord.nh.us