By the numbers
$3.85 million: Funding request submitted to convert Downtown Springfield streets to two-way traffic
$4.5 million: Total cost of the street conversion project
10,000: Vehicles pass through downtown Springfield on Main and High streets each day
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Springfield city planners have applied for $3.85 million to continue their push to convert one-way streets downtown to two-way traffic.
The change is an effort to spur economic development, Springfield Mayor Warren Copeland said.
“This is a project brought to us by downtown merchants primarily and has been talked about for some time,” Copeland said.
The proposed project will convert four streets in the Springfield central business district from one-way to two-way operation. The streets would be Limestone Street between High and North streets; Fountain Avenue between High and Main streets; and both Main and High streets between Yellow Springs and Spring streets, according to the project application.
The total cost of the project would be $4.5 million, according to the funding application, and it could begin as early as 2017 if funded.
The city submitted the funding request to the Dayton Development Coalition Priority Development and Advocacy Committee. The committee reviews and ranks projects for state and federal grants from across the Miami Valley.
Springfield would combine the money it’s requested with local and federal money it already has secured, the application says.
The conversion will consist of installing new pavement markings, replacing and upgrading signs, and replacing and upgrading traffic signals, among other things.
City engineers and planners have talked about the change to downtown streets for more than a decade.
The project was identified as a need as far back as 2002. A report conducted back then encouraged converting one-way streets to two-way traffic as a way to encourage retail development.
In 2013, changes to one block of North Fountain Avenue that converted the street to two-way traffic between Columbia and Main streets was finished. That was part of a $1.2 million project that included adding brick pavers, curbs and gutters and new sidewalks along the street.
Current one-way streets that remain in the downtown core can be an obstacle for small businesses, Copeland said.
“It causes most people to pass through downtown rather than to look around and maybe stop,” he said.
Cities once wanted one-way streets to allow traffic to move more quickly, but many cities are taking a second look and changing them back to two-way streets to attract more business, said Geoff Norman who owns The Fountain on Main restaurant, 14 E. Main St.
“Well anything to make the town a destination to come to versus a destination to drive through will be a help for businesses,” he said.
More than 10,000 vehicles pass through the downtown core of Springfield on Main and High streets each day, according to traffic counts from the Springfield-Clark Transportation Coordinating Committee.
If a driver currently passes Norman’s restaurant, he said they might not turn around because of the one-way traffic patterns.
“For them to get here they have to go up one block, over one block, down another block and then up another half a block to come around to us,” Norman said.
Business has boomed on the stretch of Fountain Avenue since the city converted it into a two-way road, said Donna Jarzab, who manages the Fair Trade Winds store, 36 N. Fountain Ave.
“A lot more people notice us and they see that there’s something on this street,” Jarzab said of the steady flow of traffic in both directions.
Since the conversion, Bada Bing! Pizzeria and Sip & Dipity Paint Bar have opened on the block. Construction for a new yoga and lifestyle studio, Revival: The Art of Healing at 36-C N. Fountain Ave. is currently ongoing.
“Businesses are looking for places where there’s good traffic patterns and there’s good parking,” Jarzab said.
The project would address “economic competitiveness” and improve “wayfinding and walkability” in the areas of the Springfield core that still have one-way streets, according to the application.
“That’s what other cities have done and it seems to have worked,” Copeland said.
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