Arches Hotspot Recreation Coordinating Committee Update

Hotspot off-Main Street Downtown Parking. The Arches Hotspot Recreation Coordinating Committee has spun off a “focus group” consisting of Wes Shannon (Downtown Business Alliance president), Kalen Jones and  myself (city council), and Matt Hancock. Matt is an interested and talented resident who has spent countless hours researching and presenting downtown parking concepts from around the world. He’s proposed making heavier use of the middle of our wide streets to add roughly 150 new stalls to Center St (100W to 200E), 100 North (100W to 100E), and 100S (Main St to 100E). All six altered blocks are based on a concept successfully used in Lancaster, CA: mid-street, two rows of two butted end-to-end curb-less angled parking stalls interspersed with pedestrian access between stalls. Where width permits, there is additional angled or parallel parking on N and S curbs as exists presently. See here for one version of this concept.

In general the stalls are smaller and travel lanes narrower with some exceptions for long vehicles. Since peds have to cross traffic lanes to get to a curb, traffic will have to be slower and drivers educated to this quasi- “pedestrian mall” concept. City engineering staff is working detailed drawings, incorporating their own ideas as well those of the focus group. The focus group hopes to get back to the Hotspot Committee in three weeks. These plans need presentation to, review from, and blessing of UDOT, downtown merchants and of course residents.