Landscaping, bike lanes among changes on 20th Street in downtown Birmingham

By Ryan Michaels

The Birmingham Times

Building started Monday in downtown on 20th Street with new landscaping and bike lanes, among the other additions as part of the Birmingham Eco-friendly Refresh from the Town Middle District Administration Company (CCDMC) and REV Birmingham.

That modifications will make the road much more pedestrian-centered, said Metropolis Councilor Darrell O’Quinn.

“There are a restricted quantity of ways that [city government] can handle fees of dwelling, and mobility is one particular of these means,” claimed O’Quinn, who signifies district 5 the place the avenue is found, “so relocating the town in the course of creating it probable for people to take into consideration not having to usually use a car or truck or even personal a vehicle is just one of the items that we can do to make improvements to good quality of existence and lessen cost of living.”

As section of the task, which is expected to be accomplished by following spring, the bicycle and flex lanes developed on a part of 20th Street will be expanded, from Morris Avenue to Linn Park. In addition, outdoor, “café-style” seating will be put alongside the sidewalks, and native, drought-resistant landscaping will be extra.

20th Avenue has been referred to as the Birmingham Inexperienced considering that the 1970s when very similar improvement projects gave the avenue new sidewalks, lighting and the eco-friendly medians that nevertheless separate targeted traffic.

O’Quinn claimed he is a “huge enthusiast of complete streets,” a term which refers to planning streets so they can accommodate a selection of works by using, this kind of as going for walks and biking, in addition to cars. A total street “takes all people into thing to consider,” in contrast to a lot of Birmingham’s streets, O’Quinn stated.

“Most streets in Birmingham are crafted with vehicular visitors in thoughts, motorized traffic, and all people else is secondary, so pedestrians frequently are still left out due to the fact, in a great deal of locations, there are not any sidewalks,” he mentioned.

Outside of pedestrians, the councilor claimed Birmingham’s streets overlook bicyclists, community transit customers and people today with disabilities. These streets have additional opportunity than the metropolis has applied, in accordance to O’Quinn.

“Our streets are a lot more than just conveyances for cars. They’re community spaces, and there are substantial alternatives for placemaking in these general public spaces, and that’s a good deal of what the 20th Road venture is about,” he reported, introducing that enhancing streets for men and women not driving vehicles calls for metropolis leaders to “undo” a ton of outdated function in Birmingham.

“Let’s experience it, people today generate vehicles, mainly because we have designed the metropolis above the last quite a few decades…to make it simple, to genuinely type of cater to persons who are driving vehicles,” O’Quinn mentioned. “While we’ve performed that, we haven’t created any sort of investment decision in getting persons to do nearly anything else but push autos.”

For updates on the Birmingham Environmentally friendly Refresh venture, go to http://revbirmingham.org/20thstreet/.