Letter to the editor
The Gainesville City Commission could step back from a bad idea this week and change course. A commission majority on Thursday could halt plans to install mile-long, narrow, one-way obstacle courses on two important streets through neighborhoods, dense student housing, University Avenue, Midtown, and the Innovation District — past businesses, offices, churches, a school, a community center, UF Norman Hall, and the site of a proposed 15-story building.
Out of nearly 400 miles of streets in Gainesville, the mile of West 10th and 12th Streets between NW and SW 8th Avenues, bisected by University Avenue, was picked for major reconfiguring and put on a list in 2022 of projects funded by federal ARPA (COVID relief) allocations. As the plan moved along since then, the City made no effort to inform the public about it, much less seek input. A few residents first heard of it when a construction contract appeared as a consent item on a commission meeting agenda in September…