Apartment project will prevent Walnut, College improvements

Pending expected approval by the Columbia City Council within the next few weeks, work will soon begin on an ambitious apartment project at the northwest corner of East Walnut Street and North College Avenue. Trittenbach Development’s third downtown apartment project will bring hundreds of new residents into The District while developing one of the largest stretches of available vacant property downtown.

Although it’s beyond question they have the right to do this — given certain adjustments and compliance with applicable codes — this project will foreclose another opportunity to improve the flow of traffic in and out of downtown Columbia.

In many ways, downtown Columbia retains some of the elements of the village it once was. Apart from Broadway, downtown streets are comparatively narrow while the blocks (i.e. the distances between each street) are somewhat undersized compared with blocks found in larger communities. Alleys that were originally designed for fire protection and utility purposes are too narrow for modern needs, which forces large vehicles to clog the middle of primary thoroughfares when making their deliveries.

The lost opportunity at College and Walnut I envisioned would have widened and realigned the intersection in anticipation of future growth and expansion on the eastern edge of downtown. The problem is East Walnut Street and the jog it takes where it intersects with College Avenue. When the state widened Route 763 40 years ago, structures on the abutting property along the College Avenue stretch precluded making any improvements to East Walnut Street. Widening the road, adding a turning lane or straightening its route as it crosses College would have been welcome improvements.

Too late. Now East Walnut Street and College Avenue will remain another lost opportunity.

Columbia’s transportation and road-building history is dotted with other lost opportunities. When the idea of building a Highway 40 bypass (now Interstate 70) around Columbia first surfaced after World War II, planning for interchanges at the time failed to anticipate the future significance of streets that have become major traffic arteries. Here are a few to consider.

• North College Avenue, which dead-ends into Business Loop 70, should have been pushed farther north to intersect with I-70 while minimizing the significance of Range Line Street south of the interstate. Outbound travelers on North College must now endure two turns and four unsynchronized traffic lights before heading northward away from the city.

• Old Highway 63: Paris Road-Route B represents another lost opportunity. An intersection with Route B (originally Mexico Gravel Road) and I-70 should have been created while figuring out a way to tie Paris Road into Old Highway 63 with a traffic circle.

• West Boulevard and I-70, of course, became an intersection, but what a mess it is. West Boulevard originally dead-ended at the original Highway 40, with Sexton Road jogging northwest and Creasy Springs Road making its somewhat timid entrance into the city. One has to wonder if there wasn’t a better way to tie those roads together.

There are others. One wonders how traffic patterns would have developed — with perhaps a solution to the West Broadway conundrum — if, for example, Walnut Street had been pushed west beyond Garth Avenue all the way to Clinkscales Avenue, which in 1951 was the western city limit.

Although it’s not yet open, there’s already admiration for the work largely completed on beautifying Range Line Street as it passes through the Columbia College campus. Are there possibilities for extending Range Line beyond Rogers Street and somehow working it into the existing pattern of streets west of College Avenue?

That brings us back to downtown. Most people have their own vision about Columbia’s business district and what they would like it to be. Although there’s much to be thankful for about downtown’s comparative prosperity, The District’s accessibility needs to be a major ongoing concern. The biggest grind in Columbia these days is driving through the downtown core. Prudent travelers at the height of weekday activity should allot up to a half hour to cross the city. Walnut Street is a key access point and needs to be improved; now it’s about to be further marginalized.