Fayetteville officials will host a series of workshops this week to gather citizen input on streets, sidewalks, and parking as part of the process of creating a new Fayetteville Mobility Plan.

City engineer Chris Brown said that the workshops will be facilitated by consultants Nelson/Nygaard and Garver, and will be the first step to creating “a community-based vision for how people get around Fayetteville.”

Brown said he expects the plan, among other things, to create a system to help the city to prioritize sidewalk, street, and intersection improvement projects.

“The way we select sidewalk projects, for example, we don’t really have a way to analyze which project is best to meet the most people’s needs,” he said. “We expect this process to give us some tools for better project selections.”

The mobility plan will also address the paid parking situation on the downtown square and in the Dickson Street entertainment district.

“For the parking side, the main deliverable we’re looking for is a recommendation for how we should operate the paid parking program,” Brown said. “Right now we have two different systems for how we handle paid parking on Dickson Street and in the downtown area.”

Currently in the Dickson Street Entertainment District, paid parking in the municipal parking deck, in city-owned lots, and on-street in the area takes effect from Monday – Sunday, from 2 p.m. – 2 a.m. The cost is 50¢ per hour from 2-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 2-6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. After that, it’s $1 per hour from 5 p.m. – 2 a.m. on Monday-Friday, and from 6 p.m. -2 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

In the downtown square area, paid parking at meters is in effect from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. on Monday-Friday, and free on the weekends. Rates range from is 5¢ for 12-20 minutes, 10¢ for 24-40 minutes, and 25¢ for an hour to an hour and 40 minutes, depending on which meter you use. There are several spaces on the square that are free for 2 hours.

“We’re looking for recommendations for making those easier to understand, and potentially, having the same rules for each location,” Brown said.

The workshops begin on Thursday, May 5 and run through Saturday, May 7. The full schedule is listed below.

Brown said all the workshops will be essentially the same, and that attendees will only need to attend one of the sessions to provide their input.

An online portal for providing input is also in the works, and is expected to launch this week now available at fayetteville-ar.gov.

For more information and to sign up for email updates, visit fayetteville-ar.gov/mobility. You can also join the conversation on social media by following the hashtag, #whichwayfay.

Workshops

Thursday, May 5
11 a.m. – 1 p.m. at the Fayetteville Senior Center, 945 S. College Ave.
2 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. at the Walmart Supercenter, 319 N. Mall Ave.
5:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. at Walker Park (near concessions), 10 W. 15th Street

Friday, May 6
11:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. in the Evelyn Hills Shopping Center, 1320 N. College Ave.
3:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. at the Harp’s Food Store, 1274 N. Colorado Drive (off Wedington)
7 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. on Dickson Street, northeast corner of Dickson Street and West Ave.

Saturday, May 7
8 a.m. – 11 a.m. at the Fayetteville Farmers Market, 101 W. Mountain Street
11:30 a.m. – 2 p.m. at the Fayetteville Public Library, 401 W. Mountain Street