Only downtown and fox point can you really live without a car without having to rely on lousy busses. Philly and Baltimore offer more of the deeply urban, walkable, with subways, etc. while being more affordable than Providence.

It would also be great if there were clawbacks if it’s not implemented per the application—would hold the city’s feed to the fire.

Yikes—how is south water reconfigured?

How likely is it that Smiley squanders this grant on filling potholes and making raised crosswalks rather than building urban trails? Are the funds tied to specific projects and outcomes?

If we’re smart, we’ll ditch the Hope Street idea just because it’s made so many enemies. Let’s get urban trails built!

There are nice buildings in Olneyville though and a lot of cool stuff going on in Olneyville square. Check out arising Sun Mills and The Plant.

Welcome!

For art scene (check social media to see if they’re open), check out: -RISD Museum -Central Contemporary Arts -Worlds Fair Gallery -The Wurks -Nicholson File -Waterfire Arts Center

For living: I were single professional in my 20’s I’d honestly life downtown/jewelry district. There’s cool restaurants and bars there, a new market, it’s walkable. Otherwise, check out Fox Point (walk down Wickenden and Ives) and the West Side (around Broadway and Westminster, walk down West Fountain Street and Broadway).

You should absolutely live in West End/Federal near Dexter Park. The Westminster/Broadway zone. It’s the “coolest” neighborhood in Providence, so coming from Austin won’t be as much of a shock, the park is great for walking dogs, plus there’s the bell street dog park. If you’re north of Cranston Street it’s NOT sketchy.

As for the east side: unless you’re RIGHT in Hope Village or right off of Wickenden, the east side is going to feel dusty, lame, and disappointing coming from Austin. Plus, the west side is more affordable.

It’s a massive 200,000 sf building. Would be a lot of units!!

I wouldn’t expect a food coop to be cheaper. I would expect to pay Whole Foods prices for more local items and to support a community-owned (vs Amazon-owned) grocery store. I always assumed the customers were just west and south siders because it’s the only option in the neighborhood for those communities.

Worcester is a totally strange place. That said the difference between living in providence proper and the suburbs is substantial—it depends on what you want.

Thayer is almost entirely catered toward college kids. The street is nice but, as an adult, Ives and Wickenden are better for that side of town.

Definitely go to each of the great main streets and see what “vibes”/people suit you as a way of figuring out where to live. Changing it up each day for morning coffee is a good way to do it.

-Hope Street in Hope (Little Sister and Seven Stars) -Wickenden Street and Ives Street in Fox Point (The Shop and Coffee Exchange) -Westminster Street downtown (Bolt or Little City) -Broadway/West Fountain on the west side (Seven Stars or Nitro Bar) -Westminster and Dexter Park in the west end (Hudson Street Deli or Sin) -Atwells Ave in Frderal Hill (er not much for morning coffee. But Broadway is nearby)

It’s not causing any traffic, that’s one of the reasons it’s time to let it be.

With regards to use, I hear you, but we have an issue currently with proving out these bike lanes, in that they were built in disconnected fragments. Until they connect and you can actually safely and seamlessly bike through the city it’s hard to measure impact because they aren’t that useable. Generally, in other cities, widespread connected bike infrastructure has led to a major increase in biking. There’s no reason to believe Providence (a sense, compact city) would be any different in this regard.

“…No one wants to bike the side street, get to Hope, and be vulnerable.”

This is how it works in most places. In Boston you bike down commonwealth avenue and cut over on whichever side street you want to get to Newbury. Same with NYC. You bike on the quiet street and cut over to the shopping street at the relevant block and you barely bike down the shopping street—you cut over and park the bike. This seems to be best practice.

Do you have ANY examples on main shopping streets where parking has been removed for cycle tracks?

Maybe Cambridge Street in Cambridge which is pretty prime but no parking was removed, just a lane of traffic.

People always complain but there’s places that cause more or less angst. It’s why NYC put lanes on less busy 1st and 2nd Avenue and not Madison or Park Avenues, and didn’t remove parking, and why they’re trying to put a cycle track on Schermerhorn and not Atlantic in Brooklyn and, again, not remove parking. Less controversial and less busy.

You and I both want the same thing but I’m just trying to be pragmatic so we don’t self destruct. Also, I agree we can’t wait on climate change, but putting a bike lane on Camp or Morris vs Hope has the same transit outcome (safe north-south biking between Olney Street and Lippet Park) so neither is better for the environment than the other—that’s sort of a red herring argument.

Anyway: this isn’t about Hope, it’s about South Water, which is a great place for a cycle track for urban design reasons (quieting the street and making a better waterfront).

People in Providence are very car-centric. We need to be very political about how we proceed, otherwise we’ll undermine our own efforts.

There would still be opposition on side streets but not nearly as much. Because Providence is still getting used to bike infrastructure we need to pick and choose our battles. Besides it IS unusual to remove a full side of parking in a commercial district for a cycle track. That’s not how it’s done in Boston and NYC—there it’s usually a road diet like south water. Removing parking is more controversial than removing a travel lane.

Anyway, point being: we need to be really strategic about how we advance bike infrastructure so that we don’t blow up the whole effort over petty battles.

Also, businesses ALWAYS oppose bike lane when they are proposed, whether they are good locations for them or not. You can’t take “businesses objections” at face value. You need to parse out what’s an insightful objection and what’s just fear. On south water it’s become apparent objections were pure fear. There’s been no negative outcomes from the bike lanes installation—so if the city had listened to the 4 businesses that were against it then the city would have made the wrong choice and not built the bike lane here.

But what would be the point of removing south water street lane? It clearly does work. There’s been in depth traffic studies showing that there is not even remotely a traffic issue on the street. No parking spaces were lost. Local businesses are doing well. Is there ANY basis for removing the south water lane other than the detractors having too big of an ego to admit they were wrong?

I also have to say, while I personally support the idea of a Hope Street bike lane, the bike community wasted a huge amount of political capital on that effort and put all bike lanes, including south water, at risk. Putting it on a parallel street to hope would have been so much less controversial and had the same effect for access. Instead we started this massive battle that created enemies with voters who otherwise would have been ambivalent at most about bike lanes.

There’s not an increase in traffic. South Water Street is empty 95% of the day and barely has traffic at rush hour. That’s partially why the bike lane makes sense at that location—the road was previously way over capacity for how many cars used it.

There aren’t that man businesses on south water and right now at least Wild Colonial, Cafe Modest, and Baccaro support the bike lane. I bet others do too now that it’s been implemented and hasn’t effected their business. The PVD streets coalition should organize these businesses so show the new mayor that businesses do support it.

We need to change our tact here. Smiley is a new mayor who is still pretty ignorant about basic city planning practices. Now is the time to educate him in a supportive way, not alienate him and push him further right by name calling.

I think he’s a pragmatist and he’s just heard more from the few but vocal opponents than he has from supporters and so he thinks this anti-south water street bike path view is the popular one.

Now is the time to letter write to show that many voters support this sort of infrastructure.

It’s not about what people on Reddit want. Installing these protected bike lanes is basic, competent, modern city planning. Most if not every dynamic American city are installing such lanes with great success. Like with south water, there is always backlash when proposed, and like south water there’s basically no negative impact after installed. Usually, at that point, the detractors just forget about it and move on when they realize their fears haven’t materialized. For some reason people here just can’t let this one go.

But it didn’t eliminate any parking! When on earth can the detractors just let this south water thing go and admit that it’s fine.