SMITHFIELD – The Downtown Smithfield Development Corporation (DSDC) and the Town of Smithfield are working to make Downtown Smithfield safer and more pedestrian friendly through a campaign set to begin in August. With a thriving and growing business community, the DSDC recognizes the need to make some improvements that will benefit downtown visitors and business owners. DSDC believes that incremental changes along with more long-term strategies to make our downtown more pedestrian friendly and support additional private investment are needed.
It is for these reasons that the DSDC Board of Directors has requested that the Town of Smithfield enforce the posted speed limit in Downtown Smithfield, prohibit the parking of vehicles on sidewalks, and enforce the two-hour parking limits as signed in the downtown core.
Market Street is a critical artery through Smithfield, and is of significant importance to our downtown, having served as Smithfield’s center of commerce and culture for hundreds of years. In recent years, however, Market Street and downtown in general have become less pedestrian friendly, in large part due to the speeds at which vehicles travel through. The DSDC Board requested the enforcement of the speed limit in order to improve the safety of both pedestrians and motorists in our downtown, enhance the atmosphere and encourage people to spend more time downtown, and to support the private investment from downtown property and business owners. Additionally, the DSDC suggested the strategic installation of speed aware radar speed signs to make drivers more aware of their speed.
The DSDC has observed a significant increase in vehicles parking on the sidewalk, which we attribute to a combination of the speeds traveled on Market Street, the narrow parking spaces, and the increasing size of many vehicles. Having vehicles on the sidewalk, an area meant for pedestrians, creates safety concerns for downtown users. Additionally, both the Town and the DSDC have made significant financial investments to upgrade the sidewalks and streetscape, and parking on the sidewalks is compromising the work that has been done, and creating additional safety issues for pedestrians.
As Downtown Smithfield continues to attract additional retail shops, restaurants, and active uses, the on-street parking spaces in the downtown core are becoming increasingly valuable for patrons of downtown businesses. Despite the 2-hour limit that exists for on-street parking in the downtown core, extended parking remains an issue. When DSDC staff completed an analysis earlier this year over the course of a three week period, they found that there was an average of more than 24 vehicles each day parked in a space in excess of that limit, with as many as 17 vehicles parked in one location for at least six hours on one day. As it is important for the on-street parking to turn over in order to make parking more convenient for downtown visitors, the DSDC encourages downtown business owners, people who work downtown, and people who are making extended visits to park in one of the nine free public parking lots located within two blocks of the intersection of Third and Market streets (a map of these lots is available under the Parking section at DowntownSmithfield.com).
The Smithfield Police Department will begin focusing on Downtown area enforcement. Drivers who exceed the posted speed limit can be ticketed and fined in accordance with North Carolina general statutes. Drivers parked in excess of posted time limits or on the sidewalk will be fined. Citations must be paid at Smithfield Town Hall.
The DSDC Board believes that these incremental changes will have a positive impact in the short term, but that additional improvements are needed as well. As such, the Board voted at its May 24 meeting to engage a firm to complete a Downtown Master Plan, which will include the identification of additional strategies designed to make Downtown Smithfield more pedestrian friendly, while also improving its function for vehicular traffic and parking. There are many options that the consultants are likely to consider and present to the community for feedback, and while some final recommendations will require long term implementation, there will be short term and mid range improvements that the DSDC and Town of Smithfield can pursue in the near future.
“As with any change, we understand that this will be an adjustment for people,” stated Tim Depp, DSDC President. “However, after hearing feedback from stakeholders and much consideration, the Board believes that these changes will be beneficial to both downtown users and businesses.”
How about talk to the courts about wasting the time of people when the are called in to be a witness of John Doe dwi and the case is continued over and over and over. They take atleast an hour going calling the peoples name. I know of four times and going to be a fifth that I’ve had to come try to find a parking spot because I called 911 to report a wreck. “The increasing size of vehicles.”…. How about the lack of size of parking places and the idiot drivers that can’t stay in their lane which causes them to hit parked cars…. If they’d fix that issue, people wouldn’t put their vehicle up on the curb. I highly doubt it’s the speed. People just aren’t paying attention and the lanes aren’t wide enough. They should build the courthouse away from the other county offices….. those businesses wouldn’t whine then because there wouldn’t be any business there.
Ticketing drivers and endangering pedestrians because of poor road design. This “stroad” tries to be both a road that gets cars from one place to another quickly and a street where people can park, walk, shop safely. It fails at both. Explore going back to the original design (2 lane, lots of street parking) if you want this to be your platform of wealth. It’s not crazy – other downtowns are doing it successfully. We have a small car but park on the sidewalk to go to Sami’s Pizza so we don’t lose our side mirror. I park in the lot behind the library to go to Heritage Center, library, Ava Museum. Charles Marohn of Strong Towns wrote a book about encouraging engineers to re-prioritize their design goals, after a child died trying to cross a stroad with speeding cars like this one. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2022/6/30/seven-stroads-that-have-been-converted-to-streets?rq=downtown
All very good points, but there is one very big problem: the Neuse River. So you make Market a Street, what do you do with the Road? Reducing capacity on Market St will cause more congestion and encourage traffic to go around on Durwood Stephenson, the only other remotely practical route, which goes toward Selma and across the front of SSS, and come back south on Bright Leaf (increasing its already heavy traffic) to go anywhere in southern or eastern areas (JCC, S Bright Leaf). Remember when the bridge was closed? I wasted considerable fuel and time going around it.
No one speeds in downtown proper, only east of 4th St, encouraged by the wider roadway and adverse traffic light timing.
Striking of parked cars is a real problem and even poses a danger to pedestrians. There is just not enough room between 2nd and 4th streets for 6 rows of pickups, SUVs and large trucks. Large numbers of dump trucks and log trucks pass through there continually, bottlenecked by the river and railroad tracks. So what’s the solution? Make vehicles park farther out in the roadway? The strikes will increase. Prohibit parking of vehicles over a certain overall width? It would need to be a fairly low number (full size vans and pickups are too large) and tough for owners to judge and city to enforce. Prohibit through commercial trucks? They’d have to waste time and fuel going around on Durwood Stephenson and Bright Leaf.
The best would be to eliminate parking on one side of those two blocks and repaint the lanes. This will not be popular with people needing to do business there. Or remove a couple of feet of sidewalk on both sides, a massive project if it can be done at all.
I’ve said that for years.The east end of Market St. is a charm.
What I’d really like to see is a new bridge where the old one was at Bridge St., Market St. one way east and Bridge St one way west. This would greatly increase traffic capacity. Will never happen.
I would like to suggest eliminating the parking on Market Street and adding a dedicated left turn lane all the way down in both directions. I’ve never understood why this has never been a priority. I despise being stuck behind someone turning left on Market St.
Seems like a conflict of interest regarding parking for DSDC. They desire more business but this will push people to choose other options except for City and County government where there are none I know I will.