Plan for angled parking forces FI to take control of Main Street
Fountain Inn wants angled parking badly enough that it wants to take Main Street, including future maintenance costs, out of the state highway system since DOT rules would only allow parallel parking on the road.
The City Council wants to see angled parking on Main Street when the city begins a project to re-create its downtown into a pedestrian hub.
These companies that come in are looking for this type of investment into the city, said Councilwoman Celia Tuttle. To not pursue angled parking I think is a mistake long range.
City Council decided to pursue a design that would create a meandering two-lane street lined with trees, wide sidewalks and sizeable patches of green space along two blocks of Main Street between Fairview and Jones streets.
The plan includes sections of angled parking spaces intermingled with parallel spaces on each side of the street, a choice the Council liked better than a similar plan that showed angled parking on just the southbound side of the street.
Council voted 7-0 to take the next step in the current city administrations push to turn decades of talk about a Main Street makeover into action.
Ive been here for 30 years and nothings been done much, said Mayor Gary Long. Its been talked about, and were trying to not talk about it. Were trying to put some action in to try to fill up the stores.
The estimated $2 million project isnt funded and the city doesnt know where it would get the funds to begin construction, but its moving forward with design and engineering while digging for funding options.
Tom Keith, architect with Arbor Engineering, which designed the project, told the Council he needed direction to pursue one design option for Main Street so he could seek approval from the transportation department.
This gives us, I think, more opportunities to have green space on Main Street, not in the middle of it, but on the side, which I think would be more amenable to having a place that you could go and have benches and places for people to sit, said Mayor Gary Long.
In order for Fountain Inn to take control of Main Street, it would have to show that there are sufficient alternate routes that could handle through traffic on the street now. City officials gave Wall and Weston streets as possibilities to handle added traffic.
The city would have to provide traffic counts for each street and show that the side streets could handle the added traffic, Keith said.
They dont have a problem taking it out of the system as long as we can get the traffic around it, Keith said.
These companies that come in are looking for this type of investment into the city, said Councilwoman Celia Tuttle. To not pursue angled parking I think is a mistake long range.
City Council decided to pursue a design that would create a meandering two-lane street lined with trees, wide sidewalks and sizeable patches of green space along two blocks of Main Street between Fairview and Jones streets.
The plan includes sections of angled parking spaces intermingled with parallel spaces on each side of the street, a choice the Council liked better than a similar plan that showed angled parking on just the southbound side of the street.
Council voted 7-0 to take the next step in the current city administrations push to turn decades of talk about a Main Street makeover into action.
Ive been here for 30 years and nothings been done much, said Mayor Gary Long. Its been talked about, and were trying to not talk about it. Were trying to put some action in to try to fill up the stores.
The estimated $2 million project isnt funded and the city doesnt know where it would get the funds to begin construction, but its moving forward with design and engineering while digging for funding options.
Tom Keith, architect with Arbor Engineering, which designed the project, told the Council he needed direction to pursue one design option for Main Street so he could seek approval from the transportation department.
This gives us, I think, more opportunities to have green space on Main Street, not in the middle of it, but on the side, which I think would be more amenable to having a place that you could go and have benches and places for people to sit, said Mayor Gary Long.
In order for Fountain Inn to take control of Main Street, it would have to show that there are sufficient alternate routes that could handle through traffic on the street now. City officials gave Wall and Weston streets as possibilities to handle added traffic.
The city would have to provide traffic counts for each street and show that the side streets could handle the added traffic, Keith said.
They dont have a problem taking it out of the system as long as we can get the traffic around it, Keith said.
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