Owen Bailey has a vision for safer, more attractive downtown street layouts originally designed as automobile-centric thoroughfares.
With the rise in pedestrian use, especially in a town with high tourist traffic, safe and attractive modifications to our streets should become a primary objective, he says.
Bailey, the Town Project Manager for Eastern Shore Land Conservancy and a member of the Chestertown Planning Commission, wants to enhance the widths of sidewalk zones at intersections and has his eye on the south end of High Street and Water Street as being a perfect pilot project.
Widening the sidewalk areas by adding “bump-outs” at its intersections narrows the width of the crosswalks, slows traffic, and enhances the town’s pedestrian appeal.
A temporary set-up using safety cones would be used to test traffic flow.
Bailey sees the intersection project as a template for other pedestrian-unfriendly areas in the community. If successful, the change can become a “cut and paste” application for other intersections in the community.
Once approved by the community, Town and State, if applicable, these cost-effective modifications could occur when the roads are next paved.
Eastern Shore Land Conservancy is comprised of avid conservationists, outdoors people, agriculturalists, environmental scientists, public servants, urban development professionals, and a variety of other stakeholders in our communities.
This video is approximately six minutes in length. For more information about For more information about ESLC, go here.
Jay Corvan says
A good idea. It’s time autos took a back seat to pedestrians and it’s time towns began to realize that autos are part of the problem not the solution. Getting people out of cars is a way to actually promote the arts economy which Easton is a big player in now. Making the automobile secondary to pedestrians really works and has benefitted many places outside if Easton, we don’t have to pretend it doesn’t work anymore. While planners need to make allowances for services and emergency equipment access , this is easily accomplished. It’s not an either it situation.
Many places like Cumberland , Maryland and Charlottesville Virginia have closed main steeet to autos which at the time was hugely controversial but ended up being the opening salvo of the successful way to Push back against the tyranny of the automobile.
Eastern shore land conservancy and Mr. Bailey should be applauded for this effort. Perhaps they could help financially sponsor a master plan for Easton large towns and small villages , of which there is none on the whole shore. An eastern shore pattern book would be a great start to move towns in that direction and have a greater impact on the area. We can’t keep trying to reinvent the wheel in every town, the corrosive forces of rampant retail development are too strong for town officials and planners to resist without guiding documents. We only have to look at western shore to see how dangerous and misplaced our future could be.
Jay Corvan Architect.