Ambitious Plan Could Completely Remake the Streets of Downtown Des Moines

A $33 million plan would make downtown Des Moines home to a dense grid of bike lanes and a safer place for pedestrians, among other changes.

1 minute read

December 20, 2017, 2:00 PM PST

By Casey Brazeal @northandclark


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"On Monday, the city council of Des Moines unanimously approved one of the biggest downtown street transformations United States has seen in years, switching dozens of miles of downtown streets from one-way to two-way, improving hundreds of crosswalks, slowing auto traffic and creating a remarkably dense grid of protected, buffered and conventional bike lanes," Michael Andersen reports for People for Bikes.

The plan, which still needs to find funding sources for the $33 million undertaking, was funded by a coalition of business groups from counties all around the city. The many miles of bike lanes have been prioritized into three stages, the first phase of which would be completed in 2019, and the last of which would be done in 2023.

Wednesday, December 6, 2017 in People for Bikes

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