Transforming downtown Hartford
Hartford’s Main Street may be transformed with a roundabout, two-way bike lane and strategically placed medians and crosswalks, a preliminary concept shows.
HARTFORD — Downtown Hartford’s broad Main Street may be transformed with a roundabout, two-way lane for bicycles and strategically placed medians and crosswalks, a preliminary design concept shows.
The ideas were shared earlier this month during a public design workshop for the city project, which seeks to make a safe, walkable corridor out of the historic center of the capital city. A final public workshop is tentatively planned for October.
A $250,000 grant will cover the cost of the preliminary design work, but the city must apply for other funds to make the project, called Re-Imagining Main Street, a reality. Project manager Sandra Fry, the city’s bicycle and pedestrian coordinator, has said it would take another $1.5 million to redesign the road.
Over three days last week, project consultants talked through solutions for some of the innate challenges of Main Street. For one, there’s very little opportunity for redevelopment: Most of the major buildings are occupied by churches and public institutions, including city hall, a public library, the
sewer and water authority office building, a federal courthouse and the Wadsworth Atheneum.
Without many storefronts or restaurants, the 4,000-foot stretch from South Green to State House Square has become more a place to navigate rather than enjoy.
“There’s no real great destinations that keep it active on an 18-hour basis, and that’s
a struggle,” said Mike Rutkowski of Stantec, the project consultant for Re-Imagining Main Street. “You’ve got a lot of institutional, museum, civic use along the corridor and that’s fine, but you also have to connect to some of the activity nodes (people want). They want cafes; they want to meet up with
“You’ve got a lot of institutional, museum, civic use along the corridor and that’s fine, but you also have to connect to some of the activity nodes (people want). They want cafes; they want to meet up with their friends; they want to get a drink.”
their friends; they want to get a drink.”
The city is hunting around for exceptions. For one, Hartford still hopes to sell the block of Main Street it owns across from city hall, now home to Cornerstone Deli.
Fry also shared that the city is working with Peppercorn’s Grill to create a parklet, or an extension of the sidewalk, out of a parking space in front of the restaurant. The extra seating area would demonstrate the need for, and benefit of, more public gathering spaces.
“What we’re doing is sort of putting our foot in the door to open the possibility to do this kind of thing,” she said. “It seems challenging in Hartford right now, so we think the demonstration project will do a lot for us.”
The biggest dissatisfaction with Main Street is safety, Rutkowski said. The road is too wide, and the blocks are too long, making it precarious for cyclists, walkers and bus riders to get around.
There have been 62 bicycle and pedestrian crashes and 338 vehicle crashes on this 4,000 foot stretch of Main Street in the past three years, two of them fatal, the city said when the project kicked off in March.
The city hopes to add a median in some portions, which would not only help pedestrians cross the street but serve to encourage lower driving speeds. The preliminary plan also includes features that comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and more pedestrian crosswalks, trees and street lighting.
The corridor’s problems compound at the intersection of Park and Main streets, where an excessively-wide area of road diverges on either side of Barnard-South Green Park.
Rutkowski’s comments on the drug- and litter-filled park were generous.
“It’s a little run-down and may need a face-lift,” he told about 25 people who joined one of the workshop’s listening sessions.
Improvements are already coming to the surrounding area. Construction began last month on a $26 million project that will bring 126 apartments over storefronts to the Park and Main corner in less than a year. That will bring more feet to the street, but could exacerbate the traffic issues at the intersection.
Engineers presented two possibilities for a traffic-calming roundabout: a familiar circle or an elongated “peanut shape” that would visually flow into BarnardSouth Green Park.
It was the first time that stakeholders were treated to renderings of potential designs.
“Barnard Park could be a really great, welcoming gateway into downtown,” said Travis Ewen, also of Stantec. “One way we were thinking about this was to take that wide swathe of asphalt,
which is 120 feet across, pretty wide, and make this more of a green entry point, so it feels like an extension of Barnard Park and feels like it’s a front door to some of these buildings.”
Another new feature of the corridor would be a two-way bicycle lane on one side of Main Street. All of the potential changes should be cost effective, the consultants said, because they don’t require purchasing rights of way or altering curbs, drainage or utilities.
The project could also be carried out in pieces, with different grants paying for different features, they said. The final goal is what’s known as a “complete street,” one that serves not just drivers but all users: pedestrians, cyclists and transit riders, children, seniors and people with disabilities.
Stantec will finish its work by the end of the year, and the city will put the project out for bid and seek additional grants to fund it. Design would take another year and a half, and construction a couple of years, Fry said.
There is no city money behind the project aside from staff time.
— Mike Rutkowski of Stantec