Tempe creating plans to modify University Drive
Sitting at three long tables, an aerial map of University Drive stretching down the middle of each, Tempe residents drew their ideal street improvements on the maps with red markers.
Tempe city planners held a meeting Thursday to discuss the best way to utilize a $1.1 million dollar transportation grant to develop design concepts for a project aimed to make University Drive more bicycle and pedestrian friendly.
The volume of bicyclists and pedestrians on University Drive has increased as car use has decreased over the last decade, said Eric Iwersen, senior planner for the University Drive Bicycle and Pedestrian Project.
“This street is really a gateway,” he said. “It’s a gateway to our neighborhoods.”
The project will focus on a segment of University Drive from Priest Drive to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks that is over a mile long, a stretch of that lacks intersections and crosswalks.
“University has to be a crossable, sociable street,” Tempe resident Kirby Spitler said.
Segmented street narrowing, lighted intersections, lighted stop signs and medians were all sketched onto the maps of University Drive at the meeting.
All three maps ended up with sketches that focused on the center of the mile-long segment where it intersects with Roosevelt Street. Each sketch identified that the spot needed a pedestrian crossing.
There are a lot of tools that can be used to achieve a safer crossing, but there is only a limited amount of money, Project Consultant Adam Perillo said.
Planners must keep four lanes on University Drive and have little room to move the curbs and gutters, Iwersen said.
The project aims to change the feeling of University Drive from a vehicular-oriented area to a more pedestrian-friendly area without drastically changing the street structure, Iwersen said.
“We have in the past had more money for projects like this. Costs go sky-high if we move the actual street,” he said.
The $1.1 million federal transportation grant poses limits as to what Tempe can do.
One intersection with traffic lights can cost anywhere from $25,000 to $100,000, Iwersen said. It is better to think of the project as making spot improvements, he said.
Iwersen pointed to social barriers that prevent drastically altering the street as well.
“I don’t know if we’re there yet, culturally,” he said. “I don’t know if the U.S. Department of Transportation is even supporting that European lifestyle.”
Planners are considering improvements such as water harvesting to increase the amount of native landscape, public art installments, American Disability Association improvements, more crossing points, enhanced bike lanes, medians, street furniture and shaded shelters.
“It’s wide, and it’s fast, so anything to help that would be good,” said Ryan Guzy, president of Tempe Bicycle Action Group.
TBAG conducted a count of bicyclists in Tempe in March 2011, in which they counted between 42 and 452 bicyclists on University Drive each hour, with more bicyclists closer to ASU.
The group plans to do another count in April and will focus more on University Drive’s cross streets to find out which areas need crossing points the most.
Tempe will hold a second public meeting in March where planners and the community can discuss more solid concepts, plans and prices. Construction is planned to start in spring 2013.
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They broke ground Friday, complex is aimed for students and young professionals. Opening date is Fall 2013.
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