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April Cleanups Annual Meeting Election Forum History Project Traffic Study
Background RFP Study Area 1st Meeting 2nd Meeting Final Report Yard Sale
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Why a Traffic Study?
Summit Neighborhood is an urban neighborhood, and like neighborhoods across the city, it suffers from traffic and parking problems. Over the years, we have heard from neighbors concerned about pedestrian and bicycle safety. We have heard from neighbors concerned about parking congestion. We usually recommend a call to the police for enforcement, or the City's Traffic Engineering office for signs. Sometimes this helps, sometimes it doesn't.In 1996, the citizens of Providence approved a ballot measure allowing the City to borrow $50 million for "capital improvement and redevelopment." $2.1 million was allocated to each of the City's 15 wards. No specific plan or project was identified beforehand. To date, most of the money city-wide has gone to street and sidewalk repaving.
In the late 1990's the SNA applied for and received federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money for the area surrounding Miriam Hospital. The money was to have paid for a traffic study of the hospital area, and implementation of its recommendations for mitigating traffic and parking congestion. That study has not yet been done.
In the 2000 election, Providence voters approved another $50 million bond issue, even though the proceeds from the last one have not all been spent yet. Once again, the money was approved without a specific plan or project.
The SNA board decided that what we need is a sensible plan to improve the neighborhood that goes beyond repaving streets and sidewalks. We sought to address our original concerns about traffic and parking in the hospital area, but we expanded the scope to include traffic problems neighborhood-wide, with a specific focus on the east-west thru-streets, and the Hope Street commercial district.
Our goal is a 5 to 10 year capitol improvement plan that will bring traffic calming to the Summit streets, suggest alternative parking and traffic flow schemes for the hospital area, and make Hope Street more pedestrian and bicycle friendly and beautify the streetscape there.
In February, 2001, the SNA, working with Councilman Jackson and the Department of Planning and Development, issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the "Summit Neighborhood Traffic Plan."
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