Downtown Scranton Connectivity Plan (Walkability Study)

Led by national walkable city expert, Jeff Speck, the City of Scranton is developing our Downtown Scranton Connectivity Plan.

The plan will focus on taking a holistic approach to the street design, parking policy, property redevelopment, and multimodal transport in Downtown Scranton. It will examine how those ingredients make downtown more vital and more connected to surrounding neighborhoods. 

This plan will be making specific recommendations regarding the reversion to two-way traffic of Scranton’s one-way street network, as well as the addition of protected bicycling facilities downtown. 

What makes efforts of this nature effective is that they look at all the factors that have a significant impact on the amount of pedestrian activity in a downtown. Economists like Chris Leinberger and Joe Cortright have properly identified walkability as a key indicator of, and contributor to, a downtown’s success. This is no surprise, since talent is mobile and can choose to locate where the quality of life is superior. Walkability is consistently identified as key characteristic of the places where people want to live and do business. 

Speck & Associates has created more than a dozen similar studies. The first such project, for Oklahoma City, led to the reconstruction of almost every street in the City’s 40-block central business district, an effort credited with that city’s dramatic turnaround. Speck & Associates has joined forces to deliver similar studies with the firm of Nelson\Nygaard, a national thought leader in the field of transportation planning. The team’s similar studies for Lowell (MA), Fort Lauderdale, New Albany (IN), Lancaster (PA), and elsewhere have resulted in new traffic patterns and street designs bringing greater safety, multi-modality, and vitality to those downtowns. 

Additional plan details will be released when the plan becomes finalized.

For more information, contact Craig Beavers at cbeavers@scrantonpa.gov .