Issue link: http://maconmagazine.uberflip.com/i/1512887
32 maconmagazine.com | DECEMBER 2023/JANUARY 2024 M a c o n A c t i o n P l a n 3 . 0 BY LAURA COLLINS L O C A L B U Z Z 3, 2, 1 ... play! BikeWalk Macon's events are exuberant examples of how MAP is improving our city. Action items from MAP 2.0 have been brought to life – like building the local audience for downtown social life, enhancing safety through pedestrian education programs, and improving pedestrian experience. To pilot the idea of expanding pedestrian plazas and creating more family-friendly spaces in the city, BikeWalk Macon's Open Streets initiative hosts street parties called Play Streets Macon. Streets are temporarily closed to traffic. Spaces for cars transform into areas for people to have fun, connect, and experience their city in a new way. On November's First Friday, a dance party was bumping, Sparks Macon hosted free yoga, and restaurants extended their patio seating. Kids and grownups played lawn games, strolled among businesses, rode bikes and rollerblades, and made fun memories with friends and family on Second and Cherry Streets. ✤ Visit bikewalkmacon.com for details about upcoming events. increase in housing, businesses, people, recreation, and aesthetics. Following this progress, MAP initiated a second phase. "The second MAP asked, 'How do we ensure the right things are happening – incorporating lenses of inclusivity, family-friendliness, sustainability, and creativity?'" continued Morrison. Today, MAP has successfully led the way for a doubling of the downtown core population, 863 new jobs, 191 new businesses, 17 business loans totaling $1.6M in funds—and the region is now vibrant with new park areas, plazas, renovated housing, and diverse street activity. Neighborhood pathways The urban core is a collective of unique, nearby neighborhoods that encapsulate the rich history of Macon. While Pleasant Hill and East Macon are continuously being revitalized, the growing concern of the MAP team is the isolation of those neighborhoods. To address this concern, MAP 3.0 proposes neighborhood pathways that flow from the residential section of the urban core to downtown, allowing the regions surrounding Downtown Macon to have safe and clean throughways to downtown commerce and activity. The plan is exploring improvements in crosswalks, signals, and landscaping, as well as enhanced signage, public art, aesthetic lighting, and underpass design. "I am most excited that this plan H aving initiated 93% of the strategies set in the first two implementations, the Macon Action Plan (MAP) shifts to focus on progress, preservation, and connectivity. Macon Action Plan 3.0 strives to bring together the revived region with connecting pathways, social plazas, and parks, preserving the vibrancy generated over the past nine years. Stacey Chen of Interface Studio— the urban design firm partnering with the Macon-Bibb Urban Development Authority (UDA)—said, "It is critical to think about how to protect what we have achieved, sustain our momentum, and maintain what makes us unique." Where it all began 2014 marked the start of this initiative to revive the urban core of Macon. Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Peyton Anderson Foundation, MAP 1.0 put in motion a year of planning aimed at improving Downtown Macon and the surrounding area, collectively, "the urban core." "The first MAP was about turning Macon's potential into kinetic energy," said Alex Morrison with the UDA, "or simply to make sure things were happening." The generation of this kinetic energy meant revitalization, filling up storefronts, and enlivening the landscape. Four years after the first phase's implementation, downtown saw an