Downtown Scranton Walkability Study Meeting

You are invited to a special presentation by national walkable city expert, Jeff Speck, who this week begins work on a Connectivity Plan for Downtown Scranton. This presentation will present the project goals and discuss the key conditions and issues being reviewed as part of this planning process.  

The presentation will be held on Monday, June 27th at the Peoples Security Bank Theater at Lackawanna College. A meet and greet will be held at 6:30pm, with light refreshments courtesy of Scranton Tomorrow, followed by the presentation at 7:00pm. 

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. 

Your input at this presentation event will help us to create an outcome that has an immediate and lasting impact on the safety, mobility, and success of downtown Scranton. 

For more information, contact Koren Clark at kclark@scrantonpa.gov or Craig Beavers at cbeavers@scrantonpa.gov .