Making Dougherty One Way and Other Ideas For A Downtown Master Plan in Athens, Ga.

Should Athens have an unadorned river, as does Fort Collins? Or a riverwalk type of place, like San Antonio? Maybe turn that retention pond into a park? What about making an arts district north of Dougherty?

Speaking of streets, what about making Dougherty one way? Or extending Pulaski all the way to Florida Avenue? Why not get rid of that parallel parking around City Hall?

These are some of the ideas UGA professor Jack Crowley has gleaned from his hours of talking with various Athenians over the past few weeks. He shared some of them with the board of the Athens Downtown Development Authority on Tuesday at its monthly meeting. The board has hired him to create a master plan for downtown--which first meant determining what, exactly, is downtown?

Crowley and a team of graduate students from the College of Environment and  Design have talked with downtown landowers and business peope, neighborhood groups, the Federation of Neighborhoods, bar owners, bike riders and church members. Plus, they've gotten tons of surveys and online correspondence.

People told the team they want downtown to have more public space, more green space--so don't forget the river. They want features downtown that appeal to families with children, and they want more diversity. And more parking. And some want downtown to be less student-centric.

If people travel from the Classic Center down to some mythical river district on the Oconee, how are they going to get back up the hill easily? "River Hill is a big deal," Crowley said. Someone said to have a cable car running up and down.

Other suggestions include closing to vehicles College Avenue between Clayton and Broad in the evenings, after the merchants on College have closed. What about putting a traffic circle at Thomas and Dougherty?

These ideas will be presented in detail at the November 27th public meeting at the Classic Center. The Fanning Institute will run the meeting. Participants will get to vote and to rank various ideas, and to see many of the concepts more fully developed. At the end of the evening, people will learn how everyone voted.

Crowley is encouraging everyone who cares about downtown to come.

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