Survey shows concern over Anderson downtown parking, one-way streets

Earlier this year, Levi Rinker, who heads up downtown development for the city, conducted an informal survey about visible elements of the city's infrastructure including traffic flow, parks and beautification prospects. The city received 180 responses.

Just under two-thirds of the respondents supported converting some of the one-way streets into two-way routes. The conversion has been discussed for years. In part, the change comes from perceptions that first-time visitors could get confused.

"That's kind of what we got from this (survey) if you lived here a long time you got around OK," said Michael Frischkorn, the city's deputy director of economic development.

Respondents were nearly evenly split on which streets could be changed. For example,there were eight more votes in favor of turning Tenth Street into a two-way route compared to staying one-way. And there were nine more people against changing 12th Street into a two-way route than those who favored a change.

Business owners had an additional concern.

"A lot of their concern was whether or not the amount of free parking would be disrupted," Rinker added.

Of those workers and business owners responding to the survey, about 70 said they spent less than one hour downtown, outside of their regular work day, in the downtown area.

Most said they parked on the street rather than use the city garage. In addition, they favor expanding the one-hour parking limit.

That traffic study is just one part of a fledgling effort by Mayor Kevin Smith to revitalize downtown.

"We're expanding our economic development scope to include the downtown," Smith said. "We've looked at some of the other successful cities, and the one thing that they have in common is reinvestment in downtown.

"Many communities have already been investing in their downtowns," the mayor added. "Anderson at this point is playing catch-up on what's been going on in the rest of the state and across country."

Perceptions of downtown were part of the informal survey.

In general, nearly two-thirds of the respondents said they were concerned about safety when they were downtown, particularly in the evening hours, and about the same percentage wanted more green spaces added to the two city parks and the privately-owned Citizens Park.

On top of that, a majority of respondents saw the addition of more flowers as a top landscaping request, followed by trees.

Work is already underway to beautify some downtown streets.

The Jackson Street Beautification Project is a $1.7 million program to install new sidewalks, street lights, tree planters and planting strips along seven blocks of the one-way downtown artery.

The updates also include new Americans with Disability Act features and new brick crosswalk accents. The project was undertaken in cooperation with the Anderson Municipal Power and Light Co. and the Madison County Council of Governments.

As far as the survey, the informal results were used to start a quarterly discussion among city economic development leaders, business owners and property owners. One of the goals is to draw more residents downtown, said Rinker.

Among encouraging signs are the future residential units at the YMCA and Tower Apartments, he noted. And the city is working to connect other neighborhoods to the downtown through a trail project from Raible Avenue and West Eight Street to the downtown.

"That residential population will bring the demand in other businesses, other restaurants," Rinker added.