Members of the public attend a meeting on the College and Walnut corridor study Tuesday.
(Lucas Gonzalez, WFIU/WTIU News)
The City of Bloomington is collecting community input on the College Avenue and Walnut Street corridor study as it considers potential changes to the two roads.
A few dozen residents came to the Bloomington City Council chambers late Tuesday to participate in one of two public engagement meetings on the project planned for this week.
It was an opportunity for people to ask questions about the initiative and provide suggestions to the city.
Potential changes to the north-south corridor have been discussed since at least 2018, but the need for a corridor study was identified in the city’s Transportation Plan, which the council adopted in 2019.
The study aims to identify improvements needed to ensure safer passage for pedestrians and bikers and make mass transit more efficient while facilitating safe and efficient passage for drivers of cars.
The city has floated the idea of changing the parallel roads to two two-ways, an option suggested in 2018 by contractor Toole Design Group to reduce driving speeds.
Beth Rosenbarger, assistant director of the city’s Planning and Transportation department, said the city wants more feedback from the community before moving forward, however.
“It’s challenging right now because we’re talking about the space as it is and trying to talk about outcomes we want to see as a community that will then get transferred into design ideas,” Rosenbarger said. “This is still just a beginning phase.”
Those who attended Tuesday’s meeting were split into groups and asked to consider three questions: What do you like and want to see retained? What do you dislike and want to see changed? What’s missing that you would like to see created?
After roughly 30 minutes of group brainstorming, participants were asked to read their responses aloud to the room. Common points highlighted by the five groups were a desire for more bicyclist and pedestrian protections, wider sidewalks and more greenery. Participants were split on keeping the streets one-ways or making them two-ways.
But not everyone was enthusiastic about the idea of changing the corridor.
A participant who asked not to be named spoke out against the idea, saying that what the city wants to achieve cannot work.
At one point during the meeting, a presentation slide was shown that included photos of Bloomington before 1907, when College and Walnut were paved. Those pictures depicted less car-centric and more pedestrian/biker-friendly infrastructure than what exists today.
“At the time you showed, the square around Bloomington … you could purchase anything you needed,” the participant said. “You did not have big box stores on the west side. You did not have the mall. Secondly, most people did not own cars, and many lived within walking distance. All of that no longer exists. What you’re wanting to see up there is not going to change that.”
Many city council members participated in the meeting, including Matt Flaherty, Isabel Piedmont-Smith, Kate Rosenbarger and Sue Sgambelluri. Also in attendance were several Democratic city council nominees, including Isak Asare and Hopi Stosberg.
The city will hold another meeting on the corridor study starting at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Bloomington City Council Building, 401 N. Morton St. It will focus on design concept ideas.
