Times Editorial : City Plan 2025
Posted on Sunday, May 11, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/Editorial/65073/
One of these days a student will raise his hand and ask his teacher why downtown Fayetteville is different than every other town. At the current rate, it seems increasingly plausible that the reply will go something like this:
“ I’ll bet you won’t believe me, but at one time there was nothing special about downtown Fayetteville. The way residents and visitors alike came into and left that section of town used to be no different than the way things worked in every other community in America. For just a couple of bucks, you could fill your gas tank and drive your car anywhere you wanted to go in downtown — whether it was a friend’s house in the Washington-Willow Historic District or the old Walton Arts Center. Just imagine being able to simply drive to any of those places. It must have really been something to be alive back then. ”
“ So what happened ? I mean, why did they change things ? ” a second child asks.
“ Well, it’s a little complicated. Documents from that period suggest that people eventually got sick and tired of drivers speeding through their neighborhoods. They spent years bad-mouthing their neighbors or writing letters to the Northwest Arkansas Times. At some point Fayetteville residents began demanding that city government install speed humps on the streets to slow down all the traffic. ”
“ So they built streets and cars used those streets, then they put bumps the road to force cars to slow down or to go to some other street ?, ” a child asks.
“ Essentially, yes. In any case the speed humps kept coming, particularly throughout the downtown area. Hump Day wasn’t just on Wednesday anymore. It was every day. As motorists shifted from the humped streets, neighbors along unhumped streets began getting overwhelmed by the shifting traffic. They wanted their own humps. ”
“ Is this where that humpback of Notre Dame came from ? Or was it Humpty Bumpty ? ” a child inquires.
“ No, no, Susie. Those are entirely different stories. But back in Fayetteville, downtown residents decided the speed humps still weren’t protecting their beautiful neighborhoods from those cursed automobiles. So — don’t laugh — they began narrowing city streets. Really. Believe it or not, East Lafayette Street used to be much wider. Cars would zoom east and west through the neighborhood at all times of day. People back in that day and age were clamoring for faster ways to get across town, and there weren’t any through-streets designed to carry the traffic.
“ Eventually they began installing tree-lined medians down the city’s most important roads, like College Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard, just to slow down traffic even more. But even that didn’t do the trick. So the neighbors complained loudly enough until the city’s aldermen agreed to use additional taxpayer dollars for traffic management, which is a big term for slowing cars down.
“ Anyway, that’s how we got the downtown Fayetteville all of us know today. Automobiles, like water, kept slipping and sliding down those neighborhood streets even when they couldn’t really fit down them anymore. So Fayetteville’s elders, in all their wisdom, ceded to the public’s demands and began building walls to block cars from using the streets at all.
“ Of course, houses within the downtown area were required to install bike racks, and the walls were built with gaps to allow walkers and bicyclists into the downtown area. This way, automobiles would never be able to reach Dickson Street, or the Fayetteville Square, ever again.
“ Well, I think everyone knows the rest of the story. The city received many awards for its sustainability efforts, but the downtown businesses just didn’t get on board. They ended up moving out to Interstate 540 near the Sam’s Club.
“ Mind you, most Fayetteville residents curse those walls to this day — but not downtown residents. They think the world of them. After all, those walls got rid of the automobiles. They weren’t thrilled to see the local economy go the way of the dodo, but for them it was a price worth paying.
“ I don’t understand, ” a child says. “ How do Fayetteville residents reach downtown today if cars can’t get them there ?”
“ Well, they’re still hoping for light rail. ”