BROOKINGS Downtown Brookings and city street department officials opted for a few ounces of prevention with the installation of four bump-outs along Third Avenue in downtown Brookings.
The bump-outs were installed at the intersections adjacent to the citys 72-hour parking lot.
The main infrastructure for the bump-outs was installed by the city last month.
The main reason for the project is safety, according to Kirsten Gjesdal, executive director of Downtown Brookings.
We noticed and saw that the 72-hour lot is the largest public parking lot in the neighborhood and there were no crosswalks going from that parking lot to kind of the commercial core of downtown, she said. And that was something that came up frequently on the Brookings transportation study that they did, as well as in the downtown Brookings master plan, as well as something that we just kind of visually saw that there were lots of people crossing that area.
Downtown Brookings secured a grant of more than $17,000 from AARP with support from Toyota Motors North America. The grant covered the entire cost of the project, which included an engineering firm study to know how large make the curb extensions and where to put signage. It also covered the supplies, labor and material in the project.
Gjesdal said the curb extension project is temporary and will hopefully last for a year or two.
Furthermore, Downtown Brookings coordinated an effort to dress up the bump-outs by painting the curb extension areas.
Its main intention is a safety project and we figured since were going to be putting these curb extensions out into the road, why not make them look a little more fun. So thats where the kind of art pattern came in, Gjesdal said.
Downtown Brookings held public feedback gatherings at a Downtown at Sundown concert and the Brookings Activity Center.
That guided a few different options for designs, as well as a few different options for color schemes, and so we got some community feedback on what they liked the most before moving forward with any of the designs and we also went through the Public Arts Commission for approval, Gjsedal said.
She said they have received help from close to 30 volunteers working on the painting project to add a little more color to downtown.
Its been pretty great to see the community come out and support it, Gjesdal said.
Gjsedal said they are using the project as a test to see if the community members like it and see if its something to pursue over the long term.
Gjesdal said Downtown Brookings has received plenty of positive feedback from the community on the project.
We have gotten really great comments so far from the people who live downtown. Thats a very popular place for people to park their cars if they live downtown. And so you think about people crossing the street with their kids or big bags of laundry or they just got done grocery shopping.
“And so being a lot more visible to the cars that are traveling has made a big difference and they have really been appreciating feeling safer crossing that road, Gjesdal said.
Contact Doug Kott at [email protected].
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