Lawrence Street Sidewalk Project to Enhance Accessibility and Community Safety
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Photo by Angela Downs [/caption]
By Angela Downs
There’s construction on Lawrence Street. The city of Port Townsend has designed a beautiful, easy-to-use new sidewalk with public safety in mind for rolling strollers, playing, hauling inventory, moving with a disability, the elderly, and the beauty of the beloved Uptown.
Laura Parsons has worked for the city of Port Townsend since 2017 and is the Civil Engineer on the Lawrance Street project. “everyone has been tremendously understanding.” Parsons said, crediting the extensive public outreach for nearly no complaints. Parsons also gives credit for the public's understanding to the director of the Farmer’s Market, Amanda Milholland, saying, “ I think it's been a lot of her positive efforts to help get the word out about the project. We appreciate her help, help from Disability Awareness Starts Here! (DASH) and the help from Jefferson Transit. They have all been partners on this project.” Parson also gestures towards the project’s superintendent for being willing and available to talk with businesses and answer their questions.
“We deny history all the time in this country, and I just don’t know how to get people more excited or more involved in trying to understand their local government because I think this is the only place for us to plug in as citizens”
— Michelle Sandoval
The Director of Port Townsend Main Street, Mari Mullen, and her organization were integral in the Water Street project downtown, helping keep business going despite the interruption of the construction. Parsons explains, “One of her primary goals on that project was to get people to still come and shop downtown, and she supports the businesses in uptown, too. Come support your local businesses as you always would. The construction team makes every effort to keep everything pedestrian accessible.”
Please don't speed through the construction zone. “It’s really important to go slow when you're driving around construction because there's people walking and carrying heavy things or doing activities that just aren't usually happening on the street,” Parsons stresses.
Along with creating accessibility through smooth sidewalks, creating bulb-outs curb extensions to the corners, narrowing the street so they make for a shorter crossing, and slowing down traffic because they narrow the street visually. The idea is to make it more inviting or non-motorized transportation for both environmental sustainability and public health. “It’s healthy for everybody in the community to be moving and get out of their cars as much as possible. To be moving their bodies and thinking of air quality.” Says Parsons.
There have been concerns about the removal of several trees, but Parsons clarifies there will be replacement trees, and the city plans to include additional trees in the final design. Parsons says, “Urban forestry is a tricky thing because you have to balance the needs of the buildings and the pipes and the people and air quality. Unfortunately, when they get very large it can cause a lot of damage to building foundations and sewer and water lines. You have to think when you put in trees that you put in the right species for the location so they can provide the air quality and shade and all, but at the same time, not damage the other structures that humans need to be able to live in an urban environment.”
The trees that have been removed from Lawrence Street aren’t going to waste, instead they have been given to the Port Townsend School of Woodworking to repurpose.
There is a mixed response to the new back-in parking on Tyler Street, with some being excited about pedestrian safety and others concerned about their ability to safely park. Parsons feels confident in people’s ability to adapt. There will also be two regular parking stalls reallocated to handicap marked stalls.
Scheduled to finish mid-December, Parsons says, “This is a pretty quick timeline on this project. And, we're right on track.”
One of the main purposes behind the upgrades is for ease of accessibility for those with movement difficulties. Michelle Sandoval was on council for 20 years and mayor for three terms, and with her husband’s recent stroke, her worldview has been opened to the limitations within infrastructure for individuals with disabilities. They know where all the worst runs of sidewalk in town are, ripped up by trees and full of treachery, many of which are outside Uptown businesses. The changes to the Uptown sidewalk mean she and her husband can go to those restaurants together again and move through the space without the anxiety of navigating obstacles
With Sandoval’s political history and personal connection to disability needs, she encourages people to think deeply about why it’s important that money goes to these projects. And while Lawrence Street project is being addressed through Public Works trust fund money, Sandoval still encourages people to think deeply and openly about the movement of money in the city, saying, “The transportation fund was gutted in 1999, and 25 years later, the chickens have come home to roost. The streets are a mess because we don't have a funding source anymore because the people voted on I-695, Tim Eyman's initiative. It's not even necessarily the citizenry's fault. I think that the government has failed, and education has failed, and it's a complicated system in terms of how funding happens.”
While it may not feel like your idea of well-spent money, or you don’t want to live through the discomfort of construction, we can all agree that infrastructure that supports and includes all citizens, especially those who have lived with the burden of a disenfranchising history, is necessary and important. “We deny history all the time in this country, and I just don't know how to get people more excited or more involved in trying to understand their local government because I think this is the only place for us to plug in as citizens,” Sandoval says.
Continue to shop and dine, and cut, stretch, and play pool all up and down Lawrence Street while the town undergoes these short but not simple changes to the sidewalks. If you would like to give your input on city funding, the next city council meeting is on November 4th at 6 pm at City Hall.
