1. Alex Garvin an experienced urban planner made a comparative speech of Wichita’s downtown to other River Cities of its size. Garvin mentioned the seriousness of us being a vehicle driven traffic market, how the lack of pedestrianizing our streets, and updating local transit, could be the detriment of projects as a whole.

— How do you plan to incorporate pedestrian friendly routes by way of streets, transit system, and bicycle friendliness?

Consider the notion of “human scale” versus “automotive scale” development and the obvious fact that Wichita, KS is designed for cars.

Question 1: Is it really a downtown if people just drive in, park, do one thing, and leave? How does that experience differ from a visit to a strip mall?

Question 2: Isn’t the whole purpose of downtown to be a place where people hang out and walk around? Doesn’t it _have_ to be built at human scale?

Question 3: Can a vital downtown be built with a public transit system that shuts down at 6 PM?

Question 4: Is there, in fact, any need for an actual downtown in a car-centric town with unlimited space and an infinite supply of gasoline?

Question 5: How will you convince Wichitans to use your downtown as a _real_ downtown and not as another strip mall or theme park?

Question 6: If your plan is chosen, what will the city, county and state need to do to maximize its chances of success?

P.S. FWIW, my answer to the last question is this: We should gradually shift the tax burden away from income, sales and property, and toward “moving stuff around”: gasoline taxes, toll roads, mileage-based taxation, car registration and driving licenses. Most of the driving in this country is unnecessary and adds literally nothing to our GDP. I would rather tax highways to pay for schools than tax food to pay for highways. Or arenas.

In response to Larry’s questions: The weekly shopping trip is a product of the rise of the suburbs, when people moved to houses further away both from work and from the older-style “corner grocery.” Supermarkets HAD to be bigger to serve larger numbers of shoppers there for longer periods of time. But a store or stores downtown would experience a different dynamic from the suburban stores. If the WDDC is truly serious about making downtown truly livable, then it has to reimagine it as a space where people will truly LIVE there–as opposed to just sleeping or being entertained there. A few smaller, full-service grocery stores (not Quik Trips, not “smokes and liquor” places, not “gourmet” stores, and not a Dillons) in the area would mean more frequent but smaller–and, thus, walkable/bike-able–shopping trips for residents. This would also mean that stores would not need to provide as many parking spaces–the vast majority of people visiting them would walk or bike there. Here’s what I would hope the WDDC will keep in mind on this issue: If downtown residents still have to drive two miles to do their full-service shopping, what advantage is there for people to move downtown? It becomes just another bedroom community–and a more expensive one than the suburbs.

I would also encourage people to make accommodations in their traffic planning for cyclists, pedestrians (dedicated bike lanes and safer sidewalks), and, perhaps, alternate means of public transportation such as trolleys. I also think that some of the area’s less-used streets could be closed to car traffic and converted to pedestrian malls with a combination of various retail and commercial outlets and housing–a combination of already-existing single-family dwellings and multifamily dwellings. Such features, I think, would both make the area truly livable for residents and attract visitors to a distinctive part of town.

Aside from that, I visit downtown for my church, the main library (it’ll make me ridiculously happy when it moves to the Delano Urban Village, practically my backyard), and events at Century II.

I used to work downtown, and walked to many little shops and restaurants around there on my lunch hours, but there’s probably been 100% turnover in the years since, so I can’t really name names there.

My wife and I moved here a year and a half ago and love what you are doing with the city’s center. It’s a great place to visit and work. As soon as it has a food market it will be a GREAT place to live. Keep up the good work.