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Rockford Region Vital Signs

Welcome to the Rockford Region Vital Signs MindMixer. We're collecting your practical & creative ideas for the region's new sustainability playbook. Help us create the region's sustainable future we want, today!

 
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Recent Comments

»David makes a decent point about a compelling reason for people to visit any particular area-wish I could "second" it.
»Even so Jon it is a diversion to go first out of one's way to get into downtown. That is unless you are visiting from Dubuque. My point Michael is that roads are not the issue, rather that sufficient reasons for coming into downtown are. There are numerous examples of towns and cities with horrendous downtown layouts that are still doing well in spite of this.
»Not to pick nits, but what about the Montague Road exit from the bypass? I'll assume the Meridian Road exit and Harrison Avenue exits are not considered "Rockford," even if they feed our city/region within a few blocks or so of the exit. In case anyone forgot, the west end of the bypass connects directly with West State Street, unlike the east end of it (which reconnects with the Business leg near Genoa Road/Belvidere).
»David brings up a good point. Entry to Rockford from 20 bi-pass is limited to Alpine, 11th and South Main. What does everyone think of having an interchange at Kishwaukee St. I believe the businesses and industrial concerns would favor this. Maybe this should have been done years ago.
»Reopening Main Street after 3 decades was pretty much it. Compared to other parts of the US Rockford's downtown traffic flow is one of the friendliest there is. We are already arterially bidirectional with Chestnut and Jefferson working well to reduce any eventual congestion. Everything knits up well connecting to highways, 20, 70 and 251. The problem isn't getting around once you're there. Its getting people to go down there that's the problem. Downtown is isolated from the highways that should otherwise best deliver traffic to our downtown, 39 and 90. The 20 bi-pass provides some little help but not sufficient. There needs be an 'Irresistible Offer' downtown that plainly offers satisfaction enough to far outweigh the pain of traveling there. http://www.illuminatedmind.net/2011/02/15/seven-irresistible-offer-rules/
»Please explain how making Jefferson and chestnut st. 2 way streets improves traffic flow? The key is the timed lights. One can travel from the Sweeds area to the library in about 3 or 4 minutes. Now that's flow!
»Regarding out-of-town visitors and our one-way-streets:
Any visitor to an unfamiliar area will find some navigation a challenge in many instances (whether here or elsewhere); the present trend is for travelers to use an electronic navigation system (such as a Garmin, TomTom, or even the free Google Maps application running on a smart-phone) to direct them to their destination in place of the paper maps of yesteryear. Assuming the maps used (paper or electronic) are current and correct is not always a given, but thankfully most of our streets and bridges in most parts of town have remained the same names and locations for decades so this is not necessarily as big of a problem as it could be.
To our benefit, we (smartly?) made many of our urban roads fairly straight (versus curved) and also named some of our streets using numbers in a declining sequence as one moves North and West, which somewhat seems to correspond with property address numbers. We are also fortunate to have multi-lane roads designed to move higher traffic counts into and out of our downtown (with timed stoplights once near the one-way streets) to make such movement easier (but sadly there is talk at removing several of them, which could make traffic flow come to a grinding halt).
We also use larger street name signs on some busy intersections with address numbers; some cities one-up this concept and light these same signs for higher visibility at night/dusk. Having businesses and property owners post a numerical address in a very visible location would also help (with an additional benefits for emergency crews finding you in a crisis).
»Regarding locals and one-way streets:
Respectfully, if you've lived in the Rockford city area for longer than two years or so, then you have few excuses for not being able to navigate a one-way street in the areas of downtown Rockford.
For those of us who actually need to get someplace downtown (such as for daily work or for play/entertainment) during the morning/evening rush times or before/after a downtown event, the one-way streets stop gridlock and allow for easy movement into and out of downtown; not having them without better mass transportation options would cause event planners and businesses (and me) to look to other parts of town to hold/attend/plan events and work unless required to actually be in the area (such as to conduct city/county/judicial business).
»a reverse audit of how we market and show our face to the world for attarcting and retaining companies and peple would be very helpful
»Perhpas the quick start would also have an incentive that could be time based?
»This is more than asking questions. it will take the village concept and perhaps we shoudl create a village for teens who are not going to stay in school if they have to live at home. may be we need a boarding situation like Job Corp to help these students advance.
»Also the structures themselves need updating. learning in blight doesn't raise your standards.
»I would like to see natural prarie growing in no mow areas. they are sustainable.
»better flow would help new people find our region easy. the one way bridges are tough to undersatnd if you are not from here.
»mass transit is not part of the culture of Rockford. if we had high school student use RMTD instead of yellow schoold buses perhaps we could begin to change the culture.

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