Could Columbia’s Assembly Street get bike lanes? Downtown could change under new plan
Columbia’s downtown streets are wide for a reason. Not only were the streets made wide to accommodate 18th-century carriages, but once, it was thought that wider streets would make it harder for mosquitoes to spread disease.
But the wide streets no longer make sense for the aspirations many have for downtown, and modern Columbians are living with the consequences of their forebearer’s urban planning.
Assembly Street, for example, is nine lanes wide, when the center median and parking spots are factored in. Traffic engineers say the road only gets enough traffic to warrant three lanes, leaving a lot of space the city can reclaim from cars and give back for more trees, sidewalks and bike lanes.
This is one of the goals of a new downtown master plan the city is developing.
The plan is still in the early stages, and the city is gathering input from residents on what they most want to see from their downtown. More bike infrastructure was ranked in the top five of people’s wants for the downtown district, along with more trees and sidewalk space for outdoor dining and shopping.
Residents have already been weighing in, and Assembly Street was frequently identified as a major problem.
“Assembly Street is a mess. Most likely to get hit by a car running or walking,” reads one comment. “Exhaust, bad to no landscaping. Simply gross.”
Assembly Street’s width is also a major barrier between downtown’s two top business districts, Main Street and The Vista. Business leaders and city officials have long discussed ways to make it easier and safer to travel between Main Street and The Vista, which are only about a half-mile apart but feel siloed by Assembly Street’s heavy traffic.
A $16 million project is in the works to make a portion of Assembly Street safer between Lady and Pendleton streets, with safety improvements also being made at the Lady, Gervais and Senate street intersections. The design of that work is already underway but the project has not been fully paid for.
The city’s downtown master plan would envision even more work to reduce the widths of streets downtown while providing more space for less car-centric traffic.
As part of gathering public feedback on the plan, the city held an open house Aug. 1, and among other tasks, asked residents to design their own perfect Columbia Street.
“I built a pedestrian-only street,” said Gunnar Burts. Downtown’s biggest problem, he said, is “the public space (is) all dedicated to cars, and it doesn’t need to be.”
Burts wasn’t alone in feeling that way. Jacob Oblander, who is on the board of the Cola Town Bike Collective, said he bikes everywhere but it takes extra effort to find safe routes. He wants Columbia to add a bicycle and pedestrian Beltway across the city, similar to what exists in Atlanta.
When it comes to bike infrastructure, Oblander said it’s not just about having one or two bike lanes, but about having a connected system that allows for wider travel.
One aspect of the city’s plan proposes the start of a wider trail system, connecting Main Street to the Congaree Riverfront and from Finlay Park to Colonial Life Arena.
Other aspects of the city’s downtown plan include improving safety for pedestrians overall, adding more outdoor public space, and finding more places for shade trees downtown, particularly between the largely unshaded stretch of Blossom and Gervais streets.
That planning process for the new downtown master plan is expected to take until the end of 2024.
