Commission reviews Regent Street preferred design; staff told to prioritize pedestrian crossings and off-street bike connections

Traffic Engineering presented the city's preferred reconstruction plan for Regent Street (Randall Avenue to Park Street) on March 4, and the Transportation Commission offered direction that emphasized pedestrian crossings and off-street bicycle connectivity.

Tom Moore summarized the design intent: convert Regent into a community-main-street layout with continuous wide sidewalks (typ. 9 feet, with some mid-block areas widening up to 17—18 feet to building face), mid-block bump-outs, on-street parking to serve businesses and provide a buffer for pedestrians, and bus pullouts to avoid in-lane boarding on the single through-lane segments. He said the team had evaluated three alternatives but rejected a sidewalk-level, all-ages bike facility and a two-lane center-turn design because of emergency-vehicle access constraints and bus stop operations. "If walking doesn't feel safe, nothing else works," Moore told the commission when describing pedestrian comfort as the project's chief success metric.

Crash and operations: staff presented a five-year crash heat map for the corridor (81 crashes excluding Park Street, including two serious injuries) and detailed event-day operations for football and concert days; staff also documented delivery patterns and found dozens of delivery/load events on a single day on the north side of a single block. The hospital's emergency-room routing was highlighted as a major design constraint; staff said they must preserve a clear width (they described a practical 28-foot requirement) to ensure ambulances can get through.

Public input: more than a dozen registered speakers addressed the plan. Business owners and Neighborhood House representatives favored the preferred alternative for preserving some on-street parking, wide sidewalks and delivery access. Cycling advocates (including Nicholas Davies) said excluding a bike facility contradicts the Complete Green Streets guide and Vision Zero goals and urged staff to present options that prioritize protected bike space. Other commenters proposed specific mitigations: raised/tabletop crosswalks, shorter crossing distances, bollards/physical protection rather than relying on parked cars, metered parking to encourage turnover, and clearer curb-management rules for deliveries.

Commissioners' direction: after extended Q&A with staff and Metro (on bus boarding), members broadly supported staff's direction while giving three clear priorities: (1) maximize pedestrian-safety treatments and reduce crossing distances where feasible (including raised crossings/tabletops at key side streets), (2) pursue the strongest possible bicycle connections to the Southwest Path and nearby parallel streets rather than forcing on-street bike facilities that would conflict with emergency access constraints, and (3) use curb-management tools (loading zones, metering, delivery strategies) and future redevelopment planning (including undergrounding utility wires with MG&E) rather than adding parking now to anticipate future demand.

Outcome and next steps: staff said they will incorporate the commission's feedback into final design work during 2026 with the goal of construction in 2027; commissioners offered informal support for the preferred alternative provided staff returns with tightened pedestrian crossings, clarified delivery/curb-management proposals and specific design details for the east-end transition.