Image of the roads from the 2019 Bloomington Transportation Plan.
(City of Bloomington Transportation Plan 2019)
Potential changes to College and Walnut, two roads running north - south through Bloomington, have been on the books since 2018, when the city contracted with Toole Design Group.
Initial recommendations were made then, but the city decided a corridor study for the area was needed first.
Bloomington’s 2019 transportation plan lists four corridor studies, one of them being College and Walnut.
The study is now underway, in beginning phases of public input. The city’s assistant director for planning and transportation Beth Rosenbarger is leading that effort, with guided tours, called discuss and strolls.
“We want to meet people out on along the corridor along college and walnut and talk about what's important to them, what's working for them, and what's not working for them, and just experience the space together.
She stands at the intersection of College and Fourth streets, watching traffic.
“So I think we would start with a question of what do we want to achieve with this space?" she said. "And then when we answer that, look at designs that help us achieve it."
Toole Design Group’s 2018 recommendation was to change the parallel one-way streets into two, two ways, to reduce driving speeds.
That idea is not off the table, but Rosenbarger said the city wants as much public input as possible and to keep the options open.
Participants tour just over a mile of the street on the Discuss-and-Stroll events..
"So far, the events are relatively low attended, but we're having great conversations," Rosenbarger said. "So we do want more people to know about them."
Members of the city’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety commission attended one last Friday, walking the northern leg from Miller Showers Park to 17th Street.
Commission member and IU graduate student Pauly Tarricone used to live near Miller Showers Park, but he doesn’t come to the area now that he’s moved.
“I get around by bike mostly," Tarricone said. "And going anywhere else means I have to really plan out what route I'm going to take how I'm going to interact with traffic, what places are going to be safest, what places are going to be more risky. And this area, for me has always just been the kind of place it's like, more trouble than it's worth.
Stroll and Discuss attendees noted speed limit, how safe they felt standing near the road, curb height, and sidewalk connectivity.
Ehren Bingaman, a managing principal at Transpro consulting and adjust urban planning instructor at Ball State says getting public input for infrastructure projects is important for community buy-in. He says sustainable street planning involves material construction, reducing carbon foot print, and prioritizing people in a space rather than vehicles.
"My hope is that they would be obviously thinking about safety," he said. "That is a priority at a national level. Distracted driving, really is an epidemic. How can you so how can you mitigate distracted driving, how can you make maybe make a calmer street experience?"
The 2019 transportation study said College and Walnut make up some of the densest areas for crashes between cars and bikes and cars and pedestrians.
Rosenbarger said a large concentration of car crashes happen in the area too.
"So when we look at College and Walnut, there are between 100 and 200 crashes a year along the stretch that we're examining from the bypass to Allen Street."
She said the city also needs to reconsider street designs with climate change in mind, increasing shade and greenery to reduce extreme heat expected.
Tarricone said attending the discuss and stroll made them reconsider the area.
"The biggest surprise for me was how many businesses are here on college south of 17th Street," Tarricone said. "Seeing all the places that are around here, all the housing, all the businesses...it really could be so much more inviting than it feels, especially with this part kind of at the center of all of it."
The city has more discuss and strolls planned through May. Then through the week of June 12, there will be a week-long engagement process collecting input and creating conceptual designs for the streets.
