WILTON – Imagine a downtown where safe continuous sidewalks lead to beautiful lake views, inviting shops, restaurants and several small parks with benches especially good for people watching.
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That’s just what 20 or more people that included town officials and interested residents did this morning in a discussion and brainstorming walk downtown. The benefits of a “walkable community” not only serve to bring more business downtown. Joan Walton, a community and regional transportation planner with the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments, said providing safe areas for foot and bike traffic make people healthier too.
“People walk less in sprawling communities,” Walton said. “An increase in sprawl is an increase in health issues.” More than 80 percent of K-12 students in Maine take the bus, often for an hour or more a day.
Providing a network of sidewalks, with well-marked pedestrian crossings, crossing guards, effective signage, along with encouragement to walk to school, will result in healthier children and the adults who walk with them, Walton said.
Also providing service “anchors” downtown such as the post office, food store, library and hardware store within walking distance on safe sidewalks encourages people to leave their vehicle at home. The town office, located away from the downtown on Weld Road, would be a good, Main Street anchor to have.
“The more services you offer, the more desirable it is to be downtown walking,” she said. Photographs she took in downtown Wilton show areas where sidewalks end or where a wide driveway or parking lot fails to distinguish the pedestrian’s path. In another instance, a crosswalk was discontinued from the bank’s parking lot to the church’s parking lot. Shrubs allowed to encroach onto the sidewalk block a walker’s route. All of Walton’s examples illustrated a break in connectivity, impediments towards wanting to go for a walk.
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Signs such as one pointing to where the library is located encourage the pedestrian to frequent it; designating road space for bicyclists and bike racks encourage riders to come downtown, lock up their bike and become a customer.
Walton commended town officials on the overall good condition of Wilton’s sidewalks, adding ideas, such as the current Americans with Disabilities Act requiring truncated domes on the ramp so the vision impaired can be alerted to the ramp and crossing. Also she advised diagonal crossing stripes stand out better than the traditional straight stripe.
The use of traffic calming devices, such as traffic islands that narrow a road, slow traffic and make it safer for foot and bike traffic, are more ideas for the downtown, Walton said.
She also advised businesses should have their name on signs hanging down over walkers’ heads, such as at Sassy Scissors, to advertise their businesses better.
“I have no idea what you’ve got downtown,” she said. She asked about what the community’s identity might be – loons, blueberries, what? The use of interpretive panels, such as history facts to promote the town, is another idea. Making use of empty lots for “pocket parks” or recreational areas between Wilson Stream and Main Street may be a possibility here.
“People will walk if there’s a place to go,” Walton said.
On the walk around town, ideas such as removing the guard rail at the town dock and installing boulders and benches, supplying public boat slips so people can cross the lake, temporarily tie up their boat and frequent downtown businesses and installing a sidewalk that leads from the Canal Street bridge to Main Street, got nods of approval at the foot of Wilson Lake.
From the ideas generated today, plans can be drawn up with possibilities of grant help to implement them is the hope.
“There’s a lot of energy in town,” Walton said of the work to improve downtown’s viability.
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Absolutely brilliant ideas — I hope the the folks of Wilton, and those of us living in surrounding communities who frequent Wilton, can work together to make some of these suggestions a reality.
Lots of wonderful ideas, but was anyone in the group carrying a calculator????
Lots of great ideas, but what about all the skateboarders who are riding in the roads, down the middle of lake road or in the middle of main street. I was coming home one evening and had three of the in the middle of the road refusing to move to the side and the one in front raised his hands and yelled out “Hit me”. This has been an ongoing problem and I do know others have called reports in also. Here is to a safe and healthy Wilton!
Are they really expecting us to walk downtown (from all over town?) to a relocated Main Street Town Office to register our vehicles or vote?! And are they suggesting taxpayers somehow foot the bill for not only the new building and the move but also a parking lot for the new municipal facility?
I think a reality check (and fiscal check) is desperately needed before this well-intentioned-yet-devoid-of-common-sense scheme is allowed to move forward.
Love the idea of moving the town office to the downtown as an anchor to draw people in and create more foot traffic. Any possibility of getting rid of some of those dilapidated apartment buildings across from the bottle return place and putting it there? Or where the closed gas station is? That side of town could use some sprucing up and a reason for people to walk there.