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Public outreach highlights parking, pedestrian safety and timing concerns for Main Street redesign
Summary
Spanish Fork staff and consultants summarized public input from business and public workshops on the Main Street concept design: parking and east–west crosswalks were top concerns, opinions split on medians and signals, and construction is not scheduled before 2028.
City staff and consultants summarized community outreach findings on proposed improvements to Main Street, telling the Spanish Fork City Council that business owners prioritized on-street parking and east–west crossings while many residents urged traffic-calming and better pedestrian visibility.
Chris Thompson, a city staff member who introduced the outreach summary, said the project seeks to balance competing priorities: safety, congestion relief and support for downtown businesses. Public engagement lead Leah Jaramillo said, "we heard from about a hundred folks between the two events," including a morning workshop for business owners and an evening open house for the general public.
The business workshop raised repeated concerns about parking and access in the historic downtown stretch from Fourth North to Center Street, Thompson and Jaramillo said. Business owners asked the project team to preserve on-street parking and consider additional side-street parking or clearly striped stalls where feasible. The north segment (Eighth North to Fourth North) drew requests for more east–west crosswalks to make downtown more walkable.
Outreach also showed disagreement about crash types and preferred engineering solutions. Some participants favored additional traffic signals and left-turn arrows; others supported medians and traffic-calming measures. "There was some disagreement around what types of accidents are occurring on Main Street," Jaramillo told the council, and the project team committed to return with a detailed crash-type analysis to align interventions with the data.
Maintenance and long-term care of landscaping were also frequent concerns. Several attendees emphasized that any beautification funded with public money should be maintained to avoid replacing failed plantings later.
Key takeaways the project team listed for council consideration were: keep on-street parking where possible; add designated left-turn arrows at existing signals; add at least one east–west marked crossing in the Eighth-to-Fourth-North section; and commit to reporting back with crash analyses showing what interventions would reduce the documented crash types.
Staff told the council that work funded through grants is currently planned with construction not expected before 2028, giving the team time to refine designs and coordinate with other corridor projects. Council members discussed whether to time the Main Street improvements to occur close to the Center Street project if that schedule becomes clearer, but staff said the Center Street funding and schedule remain uncertain.
The city posted boards and renderings online for residents who missed the events; the project team encouraged residents and businesses to scan the project QR code and provide feedback as design moves forward.
