Recommended Improvements for Huntsville (Birmingham, Madison: condo, how much, houses)

[y8tiger]

As I prepare to move away I would like to share 3 improvements I think the Huntsville area could benifit from.

IMHO:

1. A city the size of Huntsville desperately needs an East-West Connector Interstate route. Draw a line from Huntsville to I-75 and and wallah there you have it. It feels isolated without such a route.

2. The downtown area could be so much more. i.e. Greenville, S.C. - Osprey Aerials / Greenville, SC on Vimeo

3. The Aldridge Creek Greenway is great, but if it were extended to downtown it would be perfect. Bike paths like this are needed, because drivers here don't know how to share the roads well on Huntsville's designated bike routes.

I did like living here very much, but these three things stood out to me and others I talked with.

[SwampFox35]

they can't put a waterfall in downtown Huntsville. it also kind of seems like BridgeStreet serves as the downtown area now with July 4th fireworks and other events being held there.

the park in downtown Huntsville is nice but until they get some restaurants down there it will never be like Greenville

downtown Huntsville could be said to be a little more neighborhooodly feeling with some nice older houses right there. Greenville feels a bit more urban around main street.

[dijkstra]

1. They were supposed to build an Interstate from Memphis through Huntsville to Atlanta but between the politicians bickering and the tree huggers complaining about some spotted owls or something crazy like that, it hasn't and probably never will happen now or at least not in the next 25 years. Instead the funding went to I22 connecting Memphis to Birmingham which already connects to Atlanta. I22 is almost completed.

2. If you only knew how much money the city has thrown away on city officials taking "Research trips" to other cities to develop ideas for downtown and then never doing anything but a lot of talking. lol

3. I agree about the bike paths. The city could use more. Huntsville is a commuter city, it was never designed for walking or bicycling, it was purely designed around the use of automobiles. I really wish there were places for people to ride their bicycles as I don't enjoy coming around a curve or over a hill to find 5 bicyclists in the road doing about a third of the speed I am and having to dodge them. lol

[SwampFox35]

you could ride your bike up in the Monte Sano area without much traffic go bother you.

all Greenville did was change their main street from a 4 lane road to a two lane road and put up some trees and some signs, then developed the falls park around the waterfall, and they provided some incentives for companies to locate down there. I don't know why people in Huntsville need to study that.

[Reactionary]

Expanding the greenway system would be great - the City has a plan for greenways but doesn't fund construction. IMO creating a greenway between downtown and Lowe Mill would provide the biggest bang for the buck and should be prioritized.

[y8tiger]

Originally Posted by SwampFox35

all Greenville did was change their main street from a 4 lane road to a two lane road and put up some trees and some signs, then developed the falls park around the waterfall, and they provided some incentives for companies to locate down there. I don't know why people in Huntsville need to study that.

I was just using Greenville as an example, but you have very much understated the revitalization they did:

Visit Greenville, SC - YouTube

[SwampFox35]

dude I lived in Greenville and I may be moving back.

Huntsville has a nice downtown but will people go to restaurants if it's located there? it doesn't seem to have the traditional main street kind of area.

[Coogan]

1. I feel we'd be better off just modifying Hwy 72 to controlled access all the way to South Pittsburg and making it I-565 all the way through. I remember a few years ago driving to Atlanta via Scottsboro->Ft Payne->Rome and wondering how costly it'd be to run an interstate from Atlanta to HSV just because of all the blasting and earth-moving that would be required. It's just too expensive given that Atlanta-Memphis is basically half-done already going via B'ham.

2. I honestly never understand the obsession Huntsville has with developing the downtown. It's very nice as it is, and while I'd love to see some more residential high-rises in downtown, I don't see how HSV is ever going to get the amount that would make everybody happy. Why would I, or anybody else, move into a downtown condo when they can get a larger house for the same amount closer to work? There's TONS of cheap land for developers to build out the burbs. Just look outside of Gate 7 - there's a crapload of available land within 10 minutes of just about anywhere on the Arsenal. People will start moving downtown when there's an advantage to living downtown vs the burbs. I'm not opposed to either, I just think there's a "critical mass", so-to-speak, that needs to be reached before it gets there. It'd building in HSV, but it'll be another decade or two before we hit it IMHO.

3. The reason Huntsville doesn't seem to be cycle-friendly is largely because it's evolved in a largely automobile-centric mindset. In other words, it was built with the mindset of the car as the primary means of transportation. It's always cheaper to build out than build up, so instead of bike and pedestrian-friendly roads and paths, you get 5-lane thoroughfares that are made with the intention of getting people from one place to another as quickly as possible.

PS. I almost posted a similar thread last week, but decided against it. It was a list of major infrastructure projects I thought the HSV/Madison/Madison County needed badly. Number 1 was a "Madison Parkway" running from Harvest-Monrovia down to I-565 through Madison.

[lindy112]

Coogan, you should post your list...would be interesting to see.

[habs2487]

Coogan, well said about the downtown development. Also about the "Madison Parkway" Design is in place for a controlled access "Greenbrier Parkway" that will run North to South from U.S 72 west of County Line Road and line up with the original Greenbrier Road somewhere around Old Highway 20 and continue South to I-565. I know this is more for Huntsvilles future development in Limestone County but now people of west Madison and Harvest will now have another choice for a North-South route hopefully alleviating some of the congestion on current North-South routes.