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The ordinance will allow an agreement among the West Virginia Department of Transportation Division of Highways, the KYOVA Interstate Planning Commission and the city for the design and partial construction of a streetscape project downtown.

The project could include sidewalk modifications, landscaping, lighting, bicycle accommodations and additional vehicle parking areas.

The projectòòò½ÊÓƵ™s focus will be:

• 9th Street from 3rd Avenue to 7th Avenue
• 8th Street from 3rd Avenue to 5th Avenue
• 10th Street from 3rd Avenue to 5th Avenue
• 3rd Avenue from 8th Street to 9th Street

Surveys, base mapping, right-of-way identification, traffic data collection, environmental review, stormwater compliance and permitting will take place before the project begins.

The city expects to have construction documents finished within a year of the contract being finalized. The implementation of the project would depend on the phasing and the financial accessibility of the rest of it.

The total cost for the current phase, which mainly entails design, is $1,976,000. Funding for the project will come from the KYOVA Interstate Planning Commission (80%) and from the cityòòò½ÊÓƵ™s general fund (20%).

The incoming mayor and city council should tread carefully here. One personòòò½ÊÓƵ™s beautification and improvement project is another personòòò½ÊÓƵ™s monstrosity. The mixed public reviews of the Hal Greer project demonstrate that. The good, the bad and the in-between of that project should be considered in the planning for the downtown streetscape.

Many Huntington residents also remember how in the 1970s that 9th Street between 3rd and 5th avenues was closed to traffic to build a pedestrian plaza that would revitalize the area. Instead, it killed off a lot of businesses, and 20 years later the street was reopened to traffic.

Downtown Huntington could use a visual refreshing. Itòòò½ÊÓƵ™s not that itòòò½ÊÓƵ™s unsightly or anything like that, but everything needs maintenance and improvements every now and then. What kind of refreshing and who pays is always a topic of public discussion, so transparency in this process will be important, as it has been elsewhere in the city.

òòò½ÊÓƵ for traffic, the people designing the project should keep in mind what the new bicycle lanes on Hal Greer have done with traffic flow there. Huntington isnòòò½ÊÓƵ™t exactly a town with a lot of bicyclists in the area being considered. Removing motor vehicle traffic lanes to favor almost nonexistent bicycle traffic needs a lot of thought.

Itòòò½ÊÓƵ™s much too early to determine whether the downtown area would benefit from the kinds of changes that are being considered. That judgment will have to wait until the public can see the design plans and hear the cost estimates.