With Sign Clutter and Crumbling Crosswalks, Main Street Due for Major Improvements, Officials Say

Main Street has a clutter problem.

Town Planner Lisa Bourbonnais last week presented to the Town Council a detailed report on the physical state of the town’s vitally-important Main Street corridor and what amenities and components should get a second-look for repair or redesign over the next few years.

While East Greenwich’s Main Street is considered one of the most quaint and quintessential coastal New England historic downtown business districts in Rhode Island, a scratch of its surface reveals a host of issues that need fixing, according to town planners and members of the Main Street Association.

There’s a major sign clutter problem: a telephone pole at Rocky Hill Road has no less than 10 signs on it. There are municipal parking signs that point to nothing and parking lots with more than one sign on the same pole. There are illegal signs put up by businesses, not to mention a slow but steady encroachment of tables and displays along the sidewalk that has some local business owners concerned Main Street is looking less chic and more flea market.

Meanwhile, the red brick-pattern stamped concrete crosswalks along Main Street are at the end of their useful lives and replacing them with the same design would cost $150,000 or more.

There is no rhyme or reason to how sidewalk trees are integrated, with some protected by metal grates to provide more usable sidewalk space. Others are unprotected and others have small fences. And the sidewalk itself is crumbling in sections.

The ideas for future improvements are a list of short-term fixes and long-term issues boiled down by the town’s planning department based on careful study of Main Street and consultation with members of the Main Street Association of East Greenwich, which offered input during discussions held in March and April of this year, Borbonnais said.

“We looked at what needed to be done,” she told the Town Council at its Aug. 24 meeting.

SEATING AND SHELTERS
The top thing mentioned was the seating opportunities that exist on Main Street, though after some study, it might not be the most pressing issue.

“Everybody agreeed that it was important,” Bourbonnais said, but aside from perhaps one more bench being added to the streetscape, in general, staff felt the number of places to sit seems “adequate.”

The town has some memorial benches installed already and a tour of the street showed that in addition to the town benches, there are many privately-owned seating opportunities that have emerged over the years. Some are tables and chairs from restaurants.

Staff feels like there are “probably enough” places to sit. New benches in the hardwood and wraught-iron style being used cost $1,500 a piece or so, Bourbonnais said, so “they’re not cheap.”

Also mentioned was the possibility of adding one or more bus shelters along the street, but they are cost-prohibitive. The existing artistically-designed bus shelter installed in 2013 cost $49,000 and was grant funded through RIPTA.

“I think a couple of people wanted to do a new bus shelter,” Bourbonnais noted, but they are costly and there isn’t widespread support for advertising-supported shelters on Main Street, which is the alternative to waiting for a grant opportunity to come along or footing the bill for another tastefully-designed shelter.

LONDON STREET
Bourbonnais said that the areas that need more rapid improvement efforts include some specific “trouble spots,” notably on London Street where the town might need to consider repainting the wall along the East Greenwich Farms property.

An issue is that the property owner across the street, Besos Kitchen and Cocktails, has invested a significant sum in that property and “probably is feeling a little dismayed at the condition of the property across the street,” Bourbonnais said.

There could be an opportunity to place a bench in this area with some planting work and “just generally improve the area,” Bourbonnais said. The wall was last painted seven or eight years ago and some degree of improvement should be considered.

The crumbling sidewalk is “being tackled fairly methodically as we speak,” Bourbonnais said. It was noted that $50,000 was budgeted for capital improvement in this area in the current budget and the town is taking a systematic approach to making repairs one section at a time.

CROSSWALKS
The Town Council will have to consider a big decision for the aging crosswalks.

Originally installed in 2000, the “fake brick” red-stamped concrete can either be ground down and resurfaced with traditional asphalt and paint striping, or replaced with the same materials at a cost of $10,000 per crosswalk, according to an early estimate.

The advantage to using pavement is that the state Department of Transportation would then assume all maintenance responsibility for the crosswalks, which were installed with the good intention of attempting to act as a traffic calming device.

It can be argued that “it hasn’t worked out as we had hoped,” Bourbonnais said, and ”for good reasons they were installed in the first place, but now have reached end of life.”

Town Councilman Bill Stone said he would like to see some additional options for the crosswalks, asking if there was the possibility of special striping or lower cost materials before making a final decision.

Joe Duarte, public works director, noted that the DOT said any resurfacing project they’d perform could take up to three years before getting started. And choosing to replace with the existing stamped-brick material “is a whole different story.”

THE CLUTTER PROBLEM
In terms of clutter, Bourbonnais suggested council members consider a more unified and clear sign strategy. Instead of scads of signs on poles all over the place, the town should step up enforcement of illegal signs, reduce its own signs and focus on pointing drivers and pedestrians toward the top locations they’d be looking for upon entering East Greenwich. The town could set up kiosks in strategic locations in partnership with businesses who could pay for plaques to offset costs, Bourbonnais said.

As it stands, the sign situation along Main Street and the downtown district is “out of hand,” she said, with poles so laden with signs that it’s impossible for someone to process all the information as they pass by.

She noted that even with so many signs, the town has fewer signs than Blu on the Water directing motorists to the waterfront.

Blu’s signs are “ironically unlawfully installed on utility poles,” Bourbonnais said, but it shows that some coordination between the town and private businesses could solve numerous sign problems and please everyone.

The sign clutter coupled with the increasing use of the sidewalk by some businesses is an ongoing concern. Merchants from the association “talked about general clutter,” Bourbonnais said. With some businesses setting up outdoor displays, “they’re worried about this generalized ‘yard sale look’ on Main Street that is to be avoided.”

The recommendation is for the Town Council to consider a review of its ordinances governing the use of the sidewalk in commercial areas and whether there needs to be changes, such as setting requirements on the placement of tables and chairs owned by restaurants with sidewalk permits.

“As much as we love [outdoor seating] — it’s good for businesses downtown — it can create some unforseen issues,” Bourbonnais said. “Things get crowded, a door will fling open and people can’t get out.”

TREE WELLS
For tree wells, in just a one block area, five or six different treatments to street trees exist. Some are mulched, some are dirt, some have older grates, others have brick insets. There are 31 wells on Main Street from Division to First and without a standardized treatment, there’s yet one more detail contributing to the cluttered effect, Bourbonnais said.

Bourbonnais said staff priced out options that included fence guards and grates and determined that a “really basic” grate without any customization would be about $400 per tree on average.

The tree effort has been buyoed by efforts from the East Greenwich Tree Council, which is already working on grant possibilities and other fundraising efforts to supplement the town’s efforts with tree wells.

Along with harmonizing the streetscape, grates can increase the usable sidewalk area and can help the town stay within ADA requirements. That might help address some of the congestion issues during peak periods.

NEXT STEPS
Town Manager Thomas E. Coyle III said that he has not yet begun putting dollar amounts into the capital budget for next year and was hoping to get council feedback from the Main Street report to prioritize. He said he usually begins with a base level of about $775,000 for capital and from there can begin to incorporate some of the Main Street ideas.

Bourbonnais said feedback from the council will help town staff nail down short- and long-term goals and the feedback at the meeting was mostly positive.

“There are some really good ideas in the report,” said Town Council President Michael Isaacs. “When I think of the grates, when we talk about signage and directories, I’m not averse,” he said. “I think we should look for opportunities not only for grants but for sponsorship of things like grates, benches and improvements on London Street.”

Some of the increased flexibility for sidewalk use in East Greenwich that began 10 years ago was based on the wants of business owners, Isaacs said. Now it seems the time has come for a second look after business owners say the clutter is starting to become “bad for business,” he said.

“If this emerging cutter is actually not good for business or casues obstructions, then yes, something needs to be done to address it.”

Coyle said the town administration was planning to meet with members of the merchants association on Sept. 17 and will have more information to present to the council at a future meeting.

Photos courtesy: East Greenwich Planning Department