Traffic flows north and south on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in South Bend on Friday. The Smart Streets project, which is nearly cokplete, converted the street from four northbound lanes and widened the sidewalks. Staff photo by Robert Franklin
SOUTH BEND — City officials say downtown Smart Streets’ general contractor is on track for “substantial completion” by Thursday’s deadline and was expected to finish planting trees and installing brick pavers near intersections.
Next comes the question, will it work? Will the city’s nearly $21 million expenditure — coming from property tax revenue collected in the tax incremental financing district — spur economic development downtown? Will it lead to more retail, restaurants and people living there?
Those involved in downtown South Bend business think so, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg said Tuesday that the public investment already is paying off in the form of $50 million to $60 million in private sector investments — and the Smart Streets’ work isn’t even finished.
The mayor acknowledged that some people are still “grumpy” about the project, particularly because it’s added “a few” minutes to trips to or through downtown.
But he thinks that will change when two things have happened: His administration communicates to the public about the economic development impact that already has resulted from the elimination of one-way streets and the narrowing of streets, and people get used to the traffic patterns.
“It’s slower and that’s the point,” he said. “No great downtown is a through-way. There’s just a difference between the purpose of a bypass and a downtown street. For a while we mixed those two things up because we had a major highway blowing right through the downtown.”
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