Tactical Urbanism
Update (2/21/25): Neighbors traveling over the Calvary St. bridge know it can be harrowing at times. FSNA was awarded a matching tactical urbanism grant to add water barriers to the south lane of Calvary Street, creating a cyclist and pedestrian corridor connecting Fountain Square and Fletcher Place. FSNA also partnered with the Fletcher Place Neighborhood Association to expand the project to include the installation of curb bump-outs along McCarty St. to improve safety on McCarty.
Our project will be deployed on April 12th and we need your help! We have 60 water barriers to paint to get them street ready. We are looking for any artists, families, or individuals who are interested in adding their personal flair to the water barriers! All paint and materials will be provided, we just need your creativity! We will be painting locally on March 15th - specific details to follow after sign up.
How can I help?
You can sign up here for painting. Click the link to see the available dates and times.
We will also need help installing the barriers on Calvary and building curb bump-outs on McCarty on April 12th! You can sign up here to help with installation.
What is Tactical Urbanism?
Tactical Urbanism refers to a citizen-led approach to improving our neighborhood using short-term, low-cost, and scalable interventions to catalyze long-term change. This method has been used across the country to create temporary changes to roadways with the intention of sparking long-term intervention from the local government. You can read more about Tactical Urbanism and examples of how this was used to create greater change here.
What is the Tactical Urbanism proposal for Fountain Square?
Our proposal is to close the southernmost lane of Calvary St. between Virginia Ave. and Fletcher Ave. to vehicles to create a larger lane dedicated to pedestrian or bicyclist usage. We intend to use water barriers to create separation between vehicles and users of the pedestrianized space.
What is the problem that this Tactical Urbanism proposal hopes to address?
The interstate presents a barrier that makes it difficult for neighbors and visitors who are walking or biking to travel between the neighborhoods and businesses of Fletcher Place and Fountain Square. There are only 3 bridges connecting the neighborhoods, two of which only have 5’ sidewalks. The speed of vehicle traffic directly next to the sidewalk makes pedestrians and bicyclists uneasy with traveling on this crucial connection from the businesses to the neighborhood. Our proposal would widen the lane so that there is more protected pedestrianized space.
The two primary metrics we will measure the project’s effectiveness will be vehicle speed and pedestrian/bicyclist volume. We also want to record your perceptions of the project!
When would this go into effect?
The project will be in place from mid April to Mid October of 2025! We would maintain the pedestrianized space during this time and conduct traffic surveys to measure the effectiveness of this Tactical Urbanism project.
Thank you to our partners:
Fletcher Place Neighborhood Association
Fountain Fletcher District Association
For more information, please contact: