City Takes Crosswalk Concerns Seriously

Cracks, faded stripes and sidewalks that suddenly stop: the pedestrian areas in downtown San Angelo leave a little to be desired.

At Thursday’s Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) meeting at the Concho Valley Multi-Modal Transit Terminal, Director Doray Hill Jr. addressed the public’s concern about the downtown area’s appearance.

“This project has actually received a few of complaints,” Hill said, showing pictures on a Powerpoint Presentation of Chadbourne’s shabby crosswalks, “just because of the way the project looks.”

The project in reference was one completed in 2009, whose purpose was to improve the pedestrian area on N. Chadbourne, from MLK to the Concho River.

“You can kind of see that the aesthetics of the project are not really complementary with the downtown area,” Hill continued.

As downtown San Angelo continues to develop, MPO efforts to make downtown more pedestrian-friendly also increase. Some of the projects extend to building more sidewalks and crosswalks, putting in bike lanes, and re-vamping existing pedestrian areas.

The consensus in the meeting was that this increased development and the drafting of a new Bicycle and Pedestrian Improvement Project for 2013-2016 make it especially important for everyone to be on the same page, which is currently not the case.

“ …If you look at our bike plan, it actually calls for a bike lane down Oak Street. So what we’re doing is improving the pedestrian component on Chadbourne, but calling for bike lanes on Oak Street,” Hill said. “Really, what we need to be doing is looking at these projects in more detail and trying to mesh the two together.”

In order to address these issues, Hill suggested forming a Technical Advisory Committee, which would be responsible for overseeing the new projects and making sure that the objectives are logical and that they overlap.

Hill also expressed that he takes the concerns of the citizens of San Angelo seriously, and intends to take measures to ensure that all future projects are completed to the highest standards.