Karst Farm Greenway: Monroe County, IndianaThe Karst Farm Greenway is an outcome of the Monroe County Alternative Transportation & Greenways System Plan. The Storrow|Kinsella-authored plan was based on extensive community engagement, systems analysis, and conceptual design of place-based transportation elements.The Monroe County Alternative Transportation & Greenways System Plan is a vision document. Its place-based transportation theory guided formation of the plan’s opportunities, concepts, and prioritization strategies. The plan’s recommendations support the community’s long-term goal of making alternative transportation a way of life for Monroe County residents. The plan provides a foundation and reference for funding projects such as the Karst Farm Greenway through programs such as the Federal Transportation Enhancement program, administered by the Indiana Department of Transportation. The plan is designed to be flexible and responsive to continuously evolving, and challenging, infrastructure funding scenarios, while setting high standards for future network development. Karst Farm Greenway, the plan’s highest ranked priority project is now constructed, with future extensions under way. Storrow Kinsella designed the inaugural section as subconsultant to engineer-of-record, Butler Fairman & Seufert Civil Engineers. StrategiesThink beyond existing conditions to create the future. Monroe County is rapidly developing, and pressures on quality of life are continuing. Incorporating alternative transportation results in multiple benefits, including:Healthy lifestyles: alternative […]
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The Wabash River Scenic Byway Management Plan
Wabash River Scenic Byway Management PlanThe Wabash River Scenic Byway Management Plan guides and recommends policy for the 16-mile long Wabash River corridor through Tippecanoe County, Indiana. The plan integrates roadway design, wayfinding, and land stewardship under the grand theme of the river’s 2.5 million year history. This interpretive lens melds geology, archaeology, anthropology, geopolitics and ecology as defining aspects of place. It guides ongoing management collaboration across multiple agencies and disciplines towards that unifying sense of place.The plan represents a logical progression in a series of focused and interrelated efforts by the Wabash River Enhancement Corporation to enhance, protect, and preserve the rich natural and cultural heritage and intrinsic qualities of the Wabash River. This free flowing river meanders through Tippecanoe County, past the cities of Lafayette on the left bank and West Lafayette on the right bank, and upstream and downstream from them through neighboring counties.The plan specifically addresses the principal public roadway bordering the river and its floodplain, North and South River Road, and the latter’s Westward or downriver extension as Division Road. The road’s relationship to the river is obvious when viewed from the heights of satellite imagery, but less apparent to Byway travelers today, whether commuters or visitors, whose […]
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Martin Luther King, Jr. Streetscape and Neighborhood Revitalization Plan
Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard: corridor as catalyst for neighborhood renaissanceThe Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard Gateway and Streetscape is an outcome of the Development Implementation Plan for the United Northwest Redevelopment Area (UNWA) TIF District. The Development Implementation Plan focused on generating short term, implementable development opportunities. The Development Concepts, Inc. and storrow|kinsella plan was based on understanding neighborhood context and extensive community engagement. The UNWA TIF District is approximately 1.2 square miles with more than 3,000 residential parcels in the TIF. Two “opportunity areas” were identified that consisted of the best short-term opportunities where immediate infrastructure improvements were estimated to have the best potential to leverage development: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Street and the Central Canal. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Street was the “opportunity area” selected for investment because was the most viable commercial corridor in the TIF District and most likely to be the location to receive developer investment. It was also selected because it is the TIF District’s front door and provides the primary impression of the neighborhood. StrategiesMLK Street is the most important transportation corridor in the UNWA TIF District. In selecting MLK Street as an opportunity area, the TIF investment provided a boost to fully […]
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Indianapolis Historic Park and Boulevard National Register Listing
National Register of Historic Places for the Indianapolis Park and Boulevard SystemThe Indianapolis Park and Boulevard System was largely created between 1908 and 1923 by its principal planner and landscape architect, George E. Kessler. The Indianapolis Commercial Club commissioned Kessler to prepare the plan, which merged beauty and function resulting in the first automobile-based transportation plan, flood control for the rivers and creeks, and designed and connected the city park system. The plan shaped the City of Indianapolis and laid the foundation for its future growth. StrategiesAs we studied the historic park and boulevard plan, we realized the visionary genius of George Kessler and how relevant his work was to contemporary planning and design work, including:Healthy lifestyles: The Kessler parkways and boulevards were designed for two types of travel. The wide curvilinear, tree-lined driving lanes and separated, tree-lined pedestrian promenades. The experience of the route, including views to natural features, open, green spaces and groupings of trees and shrubs, rather than efficient and direct point-to-point travel is the character of the historic parkway.Increased property values: Beauty is important. “Careful attention should be given to the park beauty, and sanitation to present the most attractive condition for the building of new homes.”Efficiency: “The result […]
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Evansville Riverfront
Evansville Downtown Riverfront The $10 million Downtown Esplanade and Dress Plaza project section, shown here, stabilized the aging one-third mile long Ohio River flood protection levee and transformed it from a brutally bleak place to a place of civic pride. Its street level esplanade is a bicycle and pedestrian way that accesses multiple projecting river overlooks and a timeline railing edge of seventy-two stainless steel interpretive plaques. Dramatic lighting beacons in rhythmic bay spacing are a modern foil to the otherwise historically themed downtown. The overlooks break through the levee rail barrier (by developing openings with removable flood panels) to access new river viewing platforms. The promenade plaques create an outdoor classroom chronicling the evolution of the Ohio River, and this place on it, from glacial formation to regional city on a major transportation system.The amphitheater-style tiered seating for 5000 cascades down from the overlooks to Dress Plaza. The plaza, the site of former riverfront wharves, now hosts fireworks, world-class hydroplane racing and a public access boat ramp. The award-winning design has created a new synergy and vitality for downtown, while providing connectivity between downtown and the adjacent museum district, and to the developing greenway system’s parks and neighborhoods.The City has reclaimed its waterfront […]
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Virginia Multimodal Guidelines
Virginia Statewide Guidelines for Multimodal Planning and Design SKA was an adviser and peer reviewer during the 18-month development of Virginia’s statewide guidelines for multimodal planning and design. Our participation was based on having produced a series of multimodal planning documents for the Indianapolis eight-county region. The Indianapolis Regional Center Multimodal System Plan and its supporting Multimodal Corridor and Public Space Design Guidelines were cited as Best Practice references for Virginia’s process. Production of the Virginia guidelines was managed by Transit Planning Manager, Amy Inman, and the document was produced by the Renaissance Planning Group. Abstract The following abstract is from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation: “The Multimodal System Design Guidelines provide a holistic framework for multimodal planning with a step-by-step process of identifying centers of activity, designating connected networks for all travel modes, and designing and retrofitting specific corridors that fit with the surrounding context. This process can be applied to the full range of contexts throughout Virginia to plan connected regional transportation networks to serve all travel modes.” The Multimodal System Design Guidelines provide a holistic framework for multimodal planning with a step-by-step process of identifying centers of activity, designating connected networks for all travel […]
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