Steering committee advances five downtown sites for concept design

The Downtown Transit Steering Committee voted Sept. 23 to advance five candidate downtown sites—Site 025, Site 018, Site 026, Site 005 and Site 006—to the City Commission for concept design and further study, the chair said after a voice vote.

The decision followed a public-comment period in which neighbors raised safety and timing concerns. Kyle Johnson, vice president of the Old West Lawrence Association, told the committee that speed counts by JEO Consulting showed Tennessee Street “regularly exceeded 50 miles an hour” and that a resident review of police blotters described repeated calls for incidents such as trespassing, theft and fights; Johnson said adding a hub there “will make an already tricky pedestrian crossing even more dangerous.” Betsy Anderson, a nearby resident and pediatric nurse, told the committee a city stormwater…