For over a year, Westporters have hotly contested the future of Parker Harding Plaza.
A plan to add more greenery to the riverside parking lot behind Main Street — while making it ADA-compliant and safer for emergency vehicles, causing the loss of 40-plus spaces — has enraged some merchants and shoppers.
Reaction to the plan — which also called for a reconfiguration of the Taylor lot across the Post Road near Jesup Green, and the possible addition of more parking at the Imperial Avenue lot — has led to renewed interest in a parking deck over the existing Baldwin lot, on Elm Street.
Those ideas are considered a radical rethinking of downtown.
But to Jeff Speck, they’re just baby steps.
Jeff Speck
The nationally renowned urban planner — whose books include “Walkable City: How Downtown Saves America, One Step at a Time” — has some ideas on how Westport can really transform itself.
Our town can be much more walkable and bikeable, he says.
And it all starts by looking at downtown in an entirely new way.
Speck spoke earlier this month at Bedford Middle School, sponsored by Sustainable Westport. He was competing with several other events — including Doris Kearns Goodwin at the Library, and Startup Westport at Longshore — but a crowd of nearly 200 listened intently.
Drawn in part by the idea of walkability and bikeability, they seemed intrigued by concepts like a 2-line bike lane from downtown to the beach, via Imperial Avenue, Bridge Street and Compo Road South.
Speck noted that parking, vehicle size, speed limits, the environment, the number of lanes and the width of roads impact walkability and safety.
But that was just an appetizer. The entrée was Speck’s red-meat version of a very different Main Street and environs.
His vision of Parker Harding is “a waterfront worthy of Westport.” It places a “second Main Street,” with parallel parking, between the shops and the water.
The rest of the space is reserved for playgrounds, plazas and other amenities.
Jeff Speck sketched out this plan for Parker Harding. The Saugatuck River is at bottom; the redesigned parking lot would include playgrounds, trees and other amenities.
It is based on a larger plan of centralizing downtown parking in a structure — multi-story, but hidden from view by apartments — on the Baldwin lot.
“Changing all your lightbulbs to energy savers saves as much energy in a year as moving to a walkable neighborhood saves in a week,” he says, citing “location efficiency” as a major factor in reducing a town’s carbon footprint.
On-street parking would be priced “properly,” which Speck says would allow merchants to “truly thrive.”
In his “Walkable City” book, Speck argues that a downtown becomes a “much more vital place” once merchants “are willing to learn (from best practices nationally) that parking right in front of one’s destination is a second-class solution.”
It is inferior, Speck argues, “to what happens in the best shopping districts, where people walk a short distance from centralized parking to their destinations, creating street life.”
Jeff Speck’s presentation included this aerial view of downtown Westport. The Baldwin parking lot and environs are outlined in red.
Pricing parking “properly” will also reduce the tremendous amount of “hunting-for-parking circulation,” which Speck says slows and frustrates downtown traffic.
He also advocates 2-way traffic on all of Main Street. (It was in effect from the advent of automobiles, through he 1970s.)
Two-way traffic “improves safety, street life, traffic circulation, access to shops, and revenues to merchants,” Speck says. (Click here for a story on 2-way traffic.)
Two-way Main Street traffic, in the 1970s. (Photo/Steve Baldwin)
Speck has one other suggestion: Remove the Athleta building, to create more of a path from Main Street to Parker Harding, and the river.
“A significant gap in that 925-foot long block is needed for its economic and social success,” Speck says. “It’s best located at the bottom of Elm Street.”
But how willing is a property owner to tear down a structure?
“If the owner of the Athleta building owns the adjacent properties, or a significant amount downtown, they will benefit financially from a plan that removes some or all of that building (or another one nearby), and then places doors and windows on the corridor created by its removal,” Speck says.
“The whole downtown will be more successful when that gigantic block no longer forms an interminable Great Wall of China between Main Street and the waterfront.
CGR — the owner, part of Empire State Realty — does own adjacent Main Street property.
Westporters have “grown accustomed to a tawdry waterfront that makes folks from out of town scratch their heads and wonder ‘but … how?'” he notes.
“It is so out of keeping with the upscale, attractive image that the town wishes to portray, and not worthy of your collective status and history.
“The plan to repave it is also unsustainable, barely reducing the amount of impervious area.”
Jeff Speck’s vision for Westport is big, bold — and bound to be controversial.
Exactly like Parker Harding Plaza was, when it was first announced 7 decades ago.
(Hat tip: Rob Feakins)
Click below to watch Jeff Speck’s full presentation.
=================================================
The morning after the presentation, a group of local officials including 1st Selectwoman Jen Tooker and members of the Downtown Plan Implementation Committee met with Speck and Sustainable Westport to discuss some of his ideas.
Speck reiterated the importance of a comprehensive master plan that addresses parking policy and strategy, alongside riverfront redesign and other development efforts.
Following Speck’s visit, Sustainable Westport urges residents to continue the conversation by contributing to the vision of a walkable Westport. The organization says.
They urge residents to share their opinions by email with the RTM (RTM-DL@Westportct.gov), Planning and Zoning Commission (PandZ@Westportct.gov), and Tooker (JTooker@Westportct.gov); selectwoman@westportct.gov).
To address traffic and safety issues, click here or email the head of the Traffic and Pedestrian Safety Task Force, Tom Kiely (Tkiely@westportct.gov).
To share ideas about downtown redevelopment, click here for the DPIC feedback form.
(“06880” covers the Westport waterfront — and riverfront, and downtown, and everything else in town. We also provide a forum for discussion about it all. Please click here to support our work!)
Dan, you already did your April 1st post this year.
Speck’s ideas are creative and innovative. For goodness’ sake, give him the job!
He has great ideas, but I am not a fan of parallel parking.
Other than the two way traffic on Main Street, I like his ideas. Me thinks to be a truly “walkable” downtown, however, all cars should be banned north of the Post Road and build a multi-layer parking garage next to the Episcopal Church. Further, I was here before the Parker-Harding parking arena (when downtown merchants threw their garbage outside their back doors into the river), and have always advocated the beauty of the river being part of downtown. Some great ideas floating around but some solution to the traffic has to come first.
The only certainty from this discussion is that the town will have made zero definitive decisions two years from now. This saga is the most open-ended “discussion” I’ve witnessed in Westport during the decades I’ve lived here. And of course, once a decision is made, where’s the funding coming from?!
… And, who — REALLY — oversees implementation, let alone maintenance?
Love Speck’s ideas! We should be listening to the expert!!!
Yes, yes, and yes for Jeff Speck’s ideas. There is far too much unrealized potential downtown for the benefit of children, residents, merchants, and the planet.
A playground. In a parking lot. What could go wrong?
This is 100% exactly what Westport needs to do.
I couldn’t agree more! Maybe the library can order extra copies of Jane Jacobs’ “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” to display & generate more positive momentum.
Britt, there is a Great American City around 45 miles southwest of here. It’s an amazing place. You might want to check it out, or even more there. I know I loved it living. So vibrant and walkable. And after you do that, you can read “The Death of Great American Small Towns.”
I like bold thinking outside the box, half measures avail us nothing. While cycling along the west coast I cant help but to consider the inherent design flaws embedded within colonial town planning as apposed to post ww2 layouts.
Be that as iit may, one needs to start at the systems design structure level and work their way from those scribblings towards the fullest sprectrum of possibilites before a plan can begin to be formulated. My systems design professsor at Cornell would always stress that one needed to completly understand the use- case functions first… downtown needs to be understood as a complex system… not a pretty picture… i believe Speck has partially had a vision…slighty off the cuff and back of the envelope it is…at least a vision. He missed a bunch.
Prior to moving to Westport, my husband and I bike- and run-commuted with our children to their preschool on most days, including in the winter. Our children loved it! They enjoyed observing their ever-changing surroundings, the fresh air, and the sense of freedom even if we were the “drivers” of their vehicles. We valued the quality time together outdoors, the fact that we were doing our part for both the environment (especially me) and our wallets (particularly my husband), and it felt safe too.
We moved to a house in Westport relatively near Earthplace, a school we had enrolled our son into for preschool 6 months before we found our home, and took the trails to and from school daily rather than drive. And with the pristine roads and access to Compo and a charming downtown, I excitedly had our kids hop onto our double stroller to continue our adventures on foot. However, the runs together ended with that first one – running with my children sadly felt too dangerous.
I am in full support of Jeff Speck’s suggestions during the “Walkable Westport” presentation he provided. I truly valued his suggestions on sidewalks and protected bike paths, rooftop parking, and the use of Parker Harding as a public green space with a playground for all the reasons he listed. In addition to reasons he listed in support of his suggestions, I also believe that bike paths will help alleviate traffic in town, especially around downtown, as more individuals will be able to bike instead of drive.
The question now is: what is the next step in considering and supporting his suggestions as a town? Our family is in full support of a more walkable Westport.
This is the kind of vision Westport Downtown deserves!
There is so much wrong with Westport that sometimes it amazes me that anybody wants to move here anymore.
An unavoidable takeaway from Mr. Speck’s excellent presentation is the pressing need for revisions to the zoning regulations, particularly with regard to parking requirements but also to streamline, update, define and shape the resulting vision which they are intended to produce.
Great- now develop and finalize an overall plan! But- every plan has to start someplace and at a reasonable price. If the original problem was to increase parking downtown why not put a parking deck in the Baldwin lot. Quick, hidden, least disruptive and an instant cure. That should be step one. Then with the parking pressure relieved- plan all the improvements to Parker Harding and/or Main Street. And hopefully the plan will favor angled parking – easier than parallel and perpendicular! Look no further than Main Street Greenwich – a delightful parking and shopping paradise- even with meters!!