Page 7 - July-Aug2020 Vol38 No2
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creek (Brush Creek) was opened and the downtown area. apartments, restaurants, music venues, and
the first facility was completed in 2014, Overlaying the City’s efforts in upgrading local breweries dot the landscape.
Founders Park. To encourage economic
revitalization, Founders Park was also the public infrastructure, the commission With this overwhelming success story
designed for pedestrian use. Founders designated the distressed area with a tax in hand, the City Commission decided
Park includes a great lawn, amphitheater, increment financing tool, which assisted to expand this effort, stretching down the
artwork and an emphasis on holding property owners with underwriting Walnut Street corridor to East Tennessee
community events. In conjunction with renovation efforts. The result of these State University, providing a pedestrian and
the attention on flood minimization improvements has been that virtually every bicycle friendly connection to downtown
efforts, City crews also spent nearly four building in the downtown area has been for the 14,000+ students. A master plan
years constructing a new streetscape for renovated, and overall property values was developed over a two-year period
have increased by over 70%. Downtown and finally, LDA Engineering was again
hired to develop the corridor plans. The
Using contrasting colors, project is the number one priority of the
patterns, and materials, City, and with just that commitment, a
the proposed intersections $45 million mixed-use redevelopment
within the corridor will of the abandoned General Mill facility is
stand out and create underway.
a heightened sense of “Engineering” a place for all to be
awareness for all users.
Our challenge was simple. Provide an
Conventional and custom engineered solution which delivered on
sign panels were required the desired features of the community. We
to alert drivers and cyclist kicked the project off with an aerial flight
to the road conditions. to perform a photogrammetric survey
of the corridor and then supplemented
Proposed roadway (left) and pedestrian (right) light fixtures. Banners, baskets, and additional power circuits it with ground survey. While survey
will be incorporated to the poles to provide the City a high level of flexibility for signs, additional greenspace, was on-going, we continued research by
and seasonal décor. The scroll work and downward pointing pendants found in historical examples (above consulting the newest design guidelines
right) around train stations were incorporated into the new pole design. for urban environments from the National
Association of City Transportation Officials
The proposed (NACTO). Through a series of design
intersection at West workshops with the City, we prepared
Walnut Street and preliminary plans to replace the existing
Sevier demonstrates two-lane cross section with features
the chicane specified in the master plan and presented
(intentionally designed them to the public for questions and
curvature) used comments in December 2019. A second
throughout the corridor public meeting was held in February
as an added traffic 2020 to ensure all voices were heard and
calming measure. addressed.
One of the primary constraints for the
streetscape design was the most important
part of any roadway project, the safety
of the travelling public. Based on similar
private redevelopment in the adjacent
downtown and trip generation modelling,
we knew our design would have to provide
for a high density of multimodal traffic.
The layout of the roadway and
intersections required that bicyclists and
pedestrians be accommodated as much as
motorists. With a limited amount of space
to work with, a balance had to be struck.
The existing right-of-way width for Walnut
Street averages about 60 feet, with active
businesses on both sides of the roadway.
Given the multimodal characteristics
of the corridor, a primary objective of
the streetscape design was to increase
the awareness of everyone using it – the
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