The concrete pedestrian park between the 200 and 300 blocks of Washington Avenue in Downtown Lansing is being torn out, allowing Washington Avenue to extend to the Lansing Community College campus.
The park was put in roughly 35 years ago, the idea being that closing the road to 
traffic would encourage pedestrian use. That didn’t work, however, so the City of Lansing is using $3 million to open it back up.
“It became a barrier to people connecting with and using our downtown,” says City of Lansing Spokesman Randy Hannan of the pedestrian park.
The street extension will open in mid-November. The majority of the project is funded with grants and road money. The city will add 200 new parking spots to the area, new pedestrian crosswalks, rain gardens and benches.
Source: Randy Hannan, City of Lansing
Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here.
All Photographs © Dave Trumpie
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