Around midday on Wednesday, Forster Street between N. 2nd and Front streets was mostly devoid of traffic.
Many U.S. cities hit their population peaks in the 1950s.
Harrisburg, for instance, tallied about 90,000 residents in the 1950 census, though the population is only about half that number today.
The decline, in part, was due to the federal government’s often-ruinous transportation policies. For more than a decade, highways ripped through urban centers, making cities increasingly undesirable places to live, while simultaneously feeding the growth and sprawl of the suburbs.
Harrisburg, the commonwealth and a regional planning body now have taken one small, yet very important, step to repair some of the damage wrought more than six decades ago.
Last week, the Harrisburg Area Transportation Study decided in favor of Harrisburg’s application to use federal transportation funds to narrow and improve a dangerous, ugly stretch of Forster Street between the Harvey Taylor Bridge and N. 2nd Street.
Kudos to all involved for this wise decision.
A rendering of the planned improvements to Forster Street.
In Harrisburg, Forster Street is a poster child for reckless, shortsighted transportation planning. The mid-1950s road widening—combined with similarly unwise changes to N. 2nd and Front streets that turned those local roads into highways—tore lower Harrisburg to shreds, sealing the fate of a city already suffering from post-war industrial decline.
Today, Forster Street is a ridiculous eight lanes wide, nine in some places, from the bridge almost to N. 7th Street.
Over the years, I’ve heard many city officials and local business people ponder how to “fix” Forster so that it ceases to divide the heart of Harrisburg. Suggestions have ranged from building a pedestrian bridge over the road to burying it in a tunnel.
These aren’t bad ideas, but let’s face it, they’re never going to happen, given their complexity and expense. The easiest and most elegant solution has always been narrowing the road by eliminating two lanes and adding pedestrian-friendly features like improved crossings, medians and bump-outs.
That’s now what’s basically ahead for Forster from the bridge to N. 2nd, with work slated for next year. That stretch then will be much better integrated into its urban environment. Harrisburg will never get its little local road back, but there will be a far better balance between cars and pedestrians, between the needs of commuters and residents.
The best news may be that we now seem to have a solution for Forster Street, with the city and PennDOT finally on the same page, at least for this project. A narrower, more city-friendly street will facilitate the flow of people between Midtown and downtown, benefitting residents and businesses in both neighborhoods, while improving road safety and the quality of life here.
So, one long block of Forster Street will be fixed—five more to go . . .
Lawrance Binda is co-publisher and editor-in-chief of TheBurg.
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