UpperArlington’sFirstCompleteStreetsProjectExpandsTransportationOptions

“MORPC encourages central Ohio communities to adopt complete streets policies, because they are a valuable tool to prepare for projected population growth,” says Stephen Patchan, assistant director of planning and sustainability at MORPC. “The City of Upper Arlington’s complete streets policy lays the groundwork to make walking, biking and using transit a safer and more enjoyable experience. Complete streets like Tremont Road can help local communities meet the needs of current and future residents by providing more transportation options.”

Tremont Road is two-mile corridor, often called the “Main Street” of Upper Arlington, as it connects the library, an elementary school, a park, residences and businesses. The road was last reconstructed in the 1950s. 

“The city is going through a big change with the population increasing throughout the region. We have been feeling that demand,” says Justin Milam, AICP, planning officer for the City of Upper Arlington community development department. “The project was about protecting our neighborhoods and allowing certain areas to be redeveloped to be more walkable, mixed-use.”

Between 2014 and 2016, city officials worked with residents and businesses to design and reconstruct the corridor to improve safety and access for pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users and vehicles. The $8 million project revamped roadways, traffic signals, lighting, water and storm sewer infrastructure, and added fiber and pedestrian and bicycle safety features.

Project goals

The Tremont Road project was the first complete streets redevelopment for the city, and included:

• A full bus pad for Central Ohio Transit Authority busses outside of the traffic lane
• Five-foot sidewalks that are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act
• A dedicated bike lane and shared-use paths for bicycle traffic through a residential section of the corridor
• A center path through a commercial section of the corridor

An important goal of the project was to make streets safer for pedestrians. Some of the features added to the corridor includes a tree lawn, center turn lane, specialty paving at intersections, planted medians at mid-block crossings and a rectangular rapid flashing beacon to alert vehicles of pedestrians. 
  
Communicating with businesses and residents
It was important that city officials had a solid communication plans with residents and business owners throughout the redevelopment project. Because there are two commercially-zoned corridors, city officials met with businesses in the area at least 10 times to work out project details including driveway access and reconfiguration of intersections, says Jacolyn Thiel, PE, public service director and city engineer for the City of Upper Arlington.

“It ended up making the project successful by getting all the business owners involved early and getting their buy-in at the same time,” Thiel says. “The businesses were excited about the sidewalk connections and the shared-use path. Their biggest concern was when we went to do safety improvements and wanted to reduce the number of curb cuts. We worked closely with them to make sure the entrances into their facilities were still signed correctly and featured attractive landscaping.”

Having dialogue early on with the community also led to changes to the project. Thiel says that on-street parking was important to the community, so plans were adapted to include more options. 

“When we were doing our outreach in the beginning, we had limited street parking shown in our preliminary design. But the community really wanted it, especially the residents in the specific area where we're taking it away,” Thiel says. “So we worked with those residents to add limited on-street parking back on the street, and used pervious brick pavers that are not only aesthetically pleasing but collect and treat our stormwater runoff.”

Part of the public outreach focused on educating residents about the new elements that would be added to the corridor and their benefits, Thiel says. 

“We wanted to share with residents the benefits of what shared-use paths and bike lanes would bring to our community, and why they are important to their active transportation,” Thiel says. 

Today, the city uses a variety of methods to inform and engage the residents on upcoming construction projects including a print publication called UA iNSIGHT, e-newsletters, social media and public meetings. The city’s website also features a Geographic Information System map, allowing residents to follow the progress on the current year’s capital improvement projects. 

Results and community feedback
Phase one of the project was completed 40 days ahead of schedule, and phase two was completed 54 days ahead of schedule. 
 
“The success of the Tremont Road project has sparked other projects throughout the community. We were able to successfully add sidewalks on Lane Road, which had historically been very controversial because residents didn't want a sidewalk in their front yard. But after they saw some of the other connections made, they see the benefit,” Thiel says.

A 2017 survey of residents found that 77 percent were very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with the city’s capital improvements since 2014. 

Milam says that Upper Arlington will continue to build off the momentum of the project, and aims to create an active transportation plan to continue to make multi-modal transportation an attractive community asset.

“We've had residents come back to us and say, ‘Hey, I didn't even know most of the people that lived on my street; now we feel like we're getting reconnected and we have this sense of neighborhood back’,” Milam says. 

Complete streets best practices
For other cities and municipalities looking to launch complete streets projects, Upper Arlington officials recommend:

1. Make sure that city development and engineering are aligned. “Because you want to make sure that plans, the code and the master planning, are all set up to allow for a certain type of development, but also that the roadway will actually work and support the traffic and support all the infrastructure that's there,” Milam says.

2. Incorporate design changes as a part of outreach efforts. “Make sure you have a flexible design so that you can actually respond to resident feedback. If you hear it all but you don't change anything based on it, people are just going to push you aside,” Thiel says.

3. Work closely with your city council on policies and projects. “Because of city council’s adoption of the Complete Streets Policy, they were on board to add accommodations and when we went back for additional funding to add a buffer between pedestrians and the road way and make other aesthetic enhancements, it was approved,” Thiel says.