By Tamara Walker
The Cooper Young Business Association’s mission for the last year has been one of improving our business neighborhood and making the neighborhood into a more pedestrian-friendly place. After countless meetings and engineering drawings, success is in sight. Cooper Street will be receiving Federal funds that will pave the way for not only the safety of our customers and residents but literally help connect us to other neighborhoods via new bike lanes.
Improvements on Cooper Street from Central to Southern will involve repaving the street, reducing the traffic lanes from 4 to 2, installing a turning lane, and creating two bike lanes on either side of the street that will be reduced to one lane on the other side of Young Avenue. In addition, future talks include further enhancements, such as medians at peak foot traffic spots and colorful art-enhanced crosswalks. This work should be complete by this year’s Cooper-Young Festival on September 18th.
The Board believes that the reduction of the traffic lanes and the installation of the bike lanes will slow down the traffic on Cooper Street. Their vision for the CY area is and always has been to make improvements to the area that enhances it as a desirable place to live, work, and patronize by maintaining a living, creative, and safe environment for all.
There will be a public meeting regarding these improvements on March 23rd from 6:30–8:30 pm at Peabody School.
Unfortunately I can’t make the meeting tomorrow night, but there is another traffic problem in the neighborhood that I would love to see addressed sometime in the near future. My house is located on the side of Barksdale and that street has become a major cut through for people going from Central to Southern. Unfortunately many of those cars are speeding down the street. I am concerned for the safety of many of the pedestrians and animals in our neighborhood. I would love to see the addition of speed bumps on this street. Currently there is only one 4-way stop on this stretch. If speed bumps couldn’t be installed, maybe some of the other stop signs already in place could be converted to 4-way signs to slow down the traffic.
Thanks.