This topic gets brought up a lot and now is the time to let the city know your concerns.

Bulldoze the whole area and rebuild it to modern road standards? Or better yet put in decent mass transportation.

Frankly the whole area should be closed off to road traffic and serviced by shuttle busses. At the very least restrict vehicle size so that large trucks with towing hitches are not sticking out into the street when they park blocking traffic. I hate driving down there and avoid it like the plague.

One of my biggest dreams is for National to be shut down and a tram installed with buses branching from it and going to parking garages near the edge of town.

>Frankly the whole area should be closed off to road traffic and serviced by shuttle busses.

Sounds a little extreme.

Give me promenades dammit

The square has plenty of parking, we need parking on the south east side of downtown towards campus.

Close off the square and the surrounding block to vehicle traffic to start, it’s nuts that people drive through the square to get where they’re going. It’s inconvenient for cars and pedestrians, and I feel like half the time people only go through it by accident because everyone who frequents downtown never drives through the square unless they have to, because there are better ways.

I'd love this, along with a block to the west, east, and south.

Never had a problem parking on the southeast side of downtown. Usually just use the Wilhoit lot.

Downtown density kind of stops further south than that and east kind of ends by Kimbrough.

In theory I love this idea and have proposed this to many people.

Problem is how do you get deliveries to the businesses if you block both their front and back streets? Now you have to deliver and hand truck everything a block and you'd just have delivery trucks idling around that outside.

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Um bad things happen that’s my parking thoughts

Closing it to traveling vehicles wouldn’t mean we would get rid of the road, they could have those retractable bollards so that trucks could get through

Less MSu parking and more public parking. I’m tired of getting tickets while just trying to work downtown

Plus, it creates jobs by adding the need for gate attendant positions to let work trucks/emergency vehicles in.

18 years downtown at the same location, the parking has changed… a lot. The street parking at busy times is nil. The new apartments and hotels have used up every free spot. They put all the public garages on one side…. Needed more vision and prepared for msu expansion.

New houses are terrible right!!!! Lol. Yikes.

How about for a reasonable yearly fee, giving downtown employees with proof of downtown employment, a parking pass to park in certain places? I really don't think it would be so hard to do. There's just st this feeling of like, we need you for our tourism...but we care more about our tourists than our actual working residents.

I guess in addition what I'm saying is all of those businesses, or at least a large majority are VERY against this idea because of what I mentioned with logistics.

Without the businesses you're impacting on board, it's dead in the water.

I have lived downtown now for at least a solid 9-10 years of my life now.

The parking garages we have now, are very rarely ever full. The only times they do get full is the few times there are parades/events.

Justifying the cost of another garage downtown just for those handful of events isn’t something I can do.

Let’s talk about what there ISN’T downtown.

For one, the closest gas station is either the meth infested gas station on Chestnut, or the semi-meth infested Kum N Go by MSU. The closest we have to a convenience store is Park Central Market by Sky 11.

There are no grocery stores downtown. The closest one is Price Cutter, which is old, dirty and quiet frankly sucks. And then we have the meth Walmart further South.

Third, if this city can’t figure out what to do about the homeless and drug problems in Springfield, you’re going to start losing your more adult population and this city becomes nothing but a student town. Especially downtown.

People are sick of the crime. Business owners have had it with the homeless drug addicts that constantly tear up their bathrooms and establishments, steal, cause problems, etc.

The city is in real threat of de-evolving from the perspective of retaining a more complex work force and business environment because it can’t control crime.

Instead, apparently we do have millions for ballparks and building un-needed garages downtown.

But homeless, drug problems and crime?…. Nah. That can wait.

I wish that our city leaders were forced to live downtown for at least a year before they’re allowed to take office so they can’t just see things from the perspective of their relatively safe South side neighborhoods they tend to live in.

I agree with you bro but what are you gonna do about it? Springfield has been a meth capital for 20 years now. Big businesses don’t wanna move here the market isn’t there. The best market is fast food places that come and go. why do you think we have 3 new car washes on kearney? it’s obviously a front. Point is the homeless and drug problem is so deeply rooted in the culture here it’s easier said than done to fix it

Just get rid of the CID ticket enforcement

We’re a red state so this is just natural progression really. Nothing gets done with the crime and drugs till it can’t be ignored and then we build either a big attraction to force out the homeless or just build gated communities. The problem is all the corruption and corporate tax cuts that Springfield hands out.

I don’t disagree with you.

The problem isn’t that there are no solutions. The problem is that the city has to put its money where it’s mouth is.

How many millions are we as tax payers paying for the the baseball field? You want to know the real reason why? It’s because the Hammon’s estate is insolvent…

New garage? How much tax payer money is that going to cost?

Want my solution?

If I had any actual say so in local government affairs, I’d play dirty with the big cities that bussed their homeless down here. It’s a FACT that that’s happened. I would find the last permanent residency for those that are picked up, and if you’re an out of tow we, back to your last point of residence you go. Bus ride and good bye.

I would immediately double the police force, instead of building a garage or paying millions for a baseball field, I would build an intensive work camp/rehab center.

I would immediately make ANY drug based felony punishable by having to do a stint at the work camp, where you’re also going to be forced to clean yourself up.

You have to stop playing nice with this mess. I recognize that this is going to be unpopular for some people, but for God sakes, our entire city is RIDDLED with crime and drugs.

It’s sad that so many people are like “awwww feel sorry for them”… I do! But THEY made the choice to be on drugs, THEY made the choice to choose crime. Nobody forced it on them.

To force every day normal people to have to deal with this doesn’t get any sympathy, but the people on drugs that are committing felonies do?

What the eff has happened to this country? For real though?

Get tough on it City of Springfield! We are TIRED of living like this.

This city cannot and will not advance until it gets extremely serious about this problem. It’s threatening the city’s future. Our leaders are inept at dealing with it decisively.

> Springfield has been a meth capital for 20 years now

For those that don't know, making meth from cold medicine was basically invented here.

See also: KY3 News-Leader Sgf Citizen Facebook

Also thanks to whomever tagged my post as a duplicate I missed this one!

Let's be the real the best lots that are most convenient to where most of the stuff downtown is the private lot that once used to be public and the MSU lot. City wants to start using imminent domain after Hotel of Terror, now is their chance to put it to use downtown. Take the private lot back over.

I always love the city saying "all the free parking lots & garages downtown". They are great and I would use them, but they are clear on the other side of downtown from where a lot of the most popular stuff is on Walnut between Jefferson & South.

CID only tickets during business hours during the week. Not sure how this helps parking downtown, especially since the limited street parking can be tied up all day by someone.

This may predate you by just a couple of years downtown, but there used to be a nice grocery store in where Seattle Roast is now. It was all wrong trying to be some upscale / organic store since Price Cutter figured that's what downtown residents wanted ala Consentino's in KC downtown. I only shopped there sparingly because prices were so out of whack with a regular grocery store. Ultimately lack of business and you guessed it homeless made it unfeasible to keep it open.

I like to do 8 or 9 laps

Walking is very healthy

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