ANN ARBOR, MI — Ann Arbor officials are giving serious consideration to reconfiguring streets to allow pedestrians and cyclists to practice safer social distancing.
City Council voted 11-0 Monday night, May 4, to direct city staff to take several actions, including implementing pilot lane or street reconfigurations on some residential streets as soon as possible based on resident requests.
“Due to the coronavirus pandemic, at least 6-foot social distancing is necessary,” the council resolution states, adding sidewalks, paths and the public right-of-way should provide opportunities for safe social distancing for all users.
“Residents report that congestion points exist at bridges and near food stores that challenge, and even prevent, safe social distancing for pedestrians and cyclists.”
No specific streets have been identified yet, but Council Member Julie Grand, D-3rd Ward, said “cut-through streets that are in neighborhoods are probably going to be some of the first that we’ll see in this pilot, because that seems to be where there’s a lot of desire that we’ve heard from the community.”
City officials want to address areas where there are concerns it’s difficult for pedestrians to safely practice social distancing.
While staff has authorization to test out measures on neighborhood streets, council is still requiring staff to seek council approval before implementing any reconfigurations on non-residential streets and to solicit input from downtown business associations on measures downtown.
Grand said she would prefer city staff not have to come back to council for approval of any street reconfigurations, but she thinks the resolution was a good compromise.
“I think much of what we’re asking, staff has done already, in terms of looking at best practices,” she added.
Should Ann Arbor close streets to cars and open them to pedestrians, cyclists?
In an April 14 memo outlining options, Raymond Hess, the city’s transportation manager, said on-street parking spaces downtown could be blocked off to allow wider sidewalks or “pedestrian passing zones.”
“Access to and around the downtown will likely become more critical as shelter-in-place orders are lifted, but social distancing requirements remain to protect public safety and/or to provide public comfort and confidence,” he wrote. “Temporary changes to sidewalk and bike lane widths may be needed.”
While not related to social distancing or the coronavirus pandemic, a reconfiguration of First Street in downtown Ann Arbor, including a conversion to two-way automobile traffic with a two-way protected bicycle lane, is underway on May 4, 2020.Ryan Stanton | The Ann Arbor News
Council is asking staff to explore opportunities for safe social distancing for pedestrians and cyclists “through shared or dedicated roadways” and to look at best practices.
“Staff will utilize professional safety standards when implementing pilot programs and council acknowledges such pilot programs are by their nature experiments and may result in some complaints,” the resolution states.
Council also is asking city staff to develop recommendations and implementation strategies for more comprehensive lane or street reconfigurations and report back as soon as possible, including cost estimates.
Council Member Kathy Griswold, D-2nd Ward, has been working on the issue with city staff and others for the last month and brought forward the resolution, which went through multiple revisions before approval Monday night.
“Really this conversation started on social media on April 4 when someone mentioned a problem with a person with a disability being crowded on the sidewalk,” she said. “And obviously if someone is in a wheelchair, they can’t easily move out of the way or move off of the sidewalk.”
Griswold said limiting some streets to local traffic only would slow down and minimize automobile traffic and make it safer for people to walk and cycle in the street.
But it’s going to be complicated on downtown streets, she said, and the city needs to pay attention to what happens on parallel streets if it makes one street local traffic only.
The city also needs to work with the Downtown Development Authority and other entities, and take into account other factors such as increased delivery services, Griswold said.
Council Member Ali Ramlawi, D-5th Ward, owner of the Jerusalem Garden restaurant downtown, said downtown business has been eviscerated, many businesses are struggling and many won’t survive.
“This isn’t just a couple-week situation,” he said. “This is going to be a generational thing, and I think we need to include all our downtown merchant associations in this discussion.”
Interim City Administrator Tom Crawford said staff has been meeting with merchant associations, working on customized plans, and those should come forward soon.
Predicting many new businesses will be coming, this is an opportunity to “foster some new growth, as unfortunately the forest has been burnt down,” Ramlawi said.
“And so I think it’s important that the downtown merchants have a critical voice, a critical say in what we do with our streets and sidewalks going forward.”
The city is primarily seeing social-distancing issues in the downtown and in parks, Ramlawi said.
“I think we can pretty much isolate those as being the sticking points, the choke points,” he said. “I think we can handle things in the neighborhoods relatively well.”
Council is asking staff to keep public safety a priority and follow a “six E’s framework”: engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement, evaluation and equity.
“Nighttime illumination is imperative for safe social distancing in the roadway,” the resolution states. “Safe social distancing can be enhanced when the complete width of sidewalks, pathways and bike lanes are free of obstructions, such as potholes, trip hazards, overgrown vegetation and construction debris.”
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