Conceptual Plan

Downtown Farmington's Main Street Complete Streets project is the culmination of many years of planning. Starting as early as 1968 Farmington has been working on plans for revitalizing downtown. It was determined that downtown Farmington would need to undergo extensive infrastructure improvements, including waterline replacement and electrical grid upgrades.
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With this need and the subsequent demolition that would need to take place, a unique opportunity presented itself. City of Farmington Staff, Elected Officials, and City Residents would have the opportunity to redesign and reconstruct Main Street. In 2015 the Metropolitan Redevelopment Area (MRA) Commission decided to hire Dan Burden of Blue Zones, an internationally recognized quality of life consultant and designer to help create a conceptual plan. He along with Samantha Thomas, Built Environment Manager and Michael Wallwork, Roundabout Expert and Alternate Street Designer spent several days meeting with residents, property owners, business owners, and city staff and officials seeking input on what we wanted our downtown to be. Through a series of design charrettes and planning meetings they developed a "tool kit" of design elements that would help us achieve our goals. (See the Blue Zones Plan Here)

The Vision and Implementation Plan:

This plan includes fundamental tools to achieve the vision:

  • Road Diet - Right-sizing the Streets
  • Narrow Travel Lanes
  • Safer Intersections - the Modern Roundabout
  • Parking
  • Street Trees
  • Security and Lighting
  • Sidewalks and Street Furnishings
  • Wayfinding

This plan was delivered to the engineer as a basis for the design of the Main Street Complete Streets project.

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Above you can see an overview of the entire six block project from Miller to Auburn. This project includes many ideas that were generated in the Blue Zones Vision and Implementation plan, including modern urban roundabouts, right-sizing the road from four lanes to two, narrowing the travel lanes to 11 feet from 12, widening the sidewalks to an average of 15 feet, and creating a 6 foot wide park assist lane. The park assist lane will make parallel parking, exiting, and entering your vehicle easier and safer while allowing oncoming traffic to continue to move down the street. In addition, to keeping traffic moving smoothly, the modern roundabout reduces noise pollution as well as air pollution by reducing the need for stop and go driving thereby making Historic Downtown Farmington a much more pleasant place to live, work, and play. 
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