I went from a mile south on the interstate to 30 over to Y avenue up to cameron school road and over to The Cafe. Said 22 minutes. Not a terrible drive.
Ames urbanization and densification
- Thread starter Cypow
- Start date
I went from a mile south on the interstate to 30 over to Y avenue up to cameron school road and over to The Cafe. Said 22 minutes. Not a terrible drive.
spending a ton of money to get people to the NW corner of town more quickly would be a horrible waste of money. Instead of taking 13 minutes to get there from I-35 it takes 8?
Other than managing game day traffic there is essentially no need to spend money on roads for people in Ames to “bypass traffic” or make routes quicker to parts of town.
Outside of game days and soccer/baseball Saturdays on South Duff You can get to/from anywhere in town in less than 20 mins.
There are so many needs to make the city operate better that should be priority over any major bypass/direct routes to housing areas.
While there is some overlap, I think the needs for students vs the rest of the community are different enough, and space is limited enough in campus town that it would be really hard to thread that needle. It is attractive to many non-students now, and could be moreso, but I don’t think there’s the business space in campus town to get the volume and diversity of businesses to make it THE central hub of town.
I don't know if campustown has the space available for parking. It's certainly not a place I enjoy going currently.
What you are saying is true today, but what about in 10 to 15 years? With the growth of new housing being built between the NW part of Ames and North to Gilbert its going to be a mess and getting worse.
There's a lot of truth in your post, but Duff is a nightmare during the work week even when the students are away. There's no good way to leave the various businesses that are slammed next to each other and trying to grab lunch from any of the fast food joints on that side of town - even during the pandemic - takes WAY longer than it should. Outside of the lunch hour and gamedays, Ames is very manageable. Adding a dedicated right-hand turn lane into some of these places would help significantly.
Well Welch Ave has been torn up for about a month so its kinda a pain to get down their.
I wouldn't know since I never go to campustown. It's just not worth it for the lack of parking.
I just avoid south duff if at all possible. Its a **** show.
The more stuff they shoehorn on South Duff makes it less likely I'll patronize a business on South Duff.
Yes. Way to NW Ames depends on where one starts. From downtown area, might as well go Duff or Grand to Bloomington, west to where ever. When I lived in Ames, it was either far SE Ames or far west Ames. No particular reason to NW Ames much.
I took that class too or a similar one. Mine was basically to make Campustown pedestrian only and the only feedback from other students was "where would we park".... I don't know maybe that GIANT ASS BRAND NEW INTERMODAL FACILITY THAT NO ONE USES!? (Or at least at the time no one used it. Hope it's finally gotten some traction)
Yeah my wife always gives me fits when I just take "back roads" instead of going on Duff. It's not worth it
Lot of stuff in the way north of Ames. Couple ways to utilize existing off ramps. Critisim welcomed.
IMHO what Ames needs as much as a crosstown thruway (like above) is more flood control. I'm curious what the engineers think of propping up the flood plain and paving it with more concrete. Seems to me the Skunk and (renamed) Squaw are disasters waiting to happen when '93 repeats itself.
So the road is already there, up grade it and make it a four lane highway to bypass the northern part of town or to use to get to that part of town and further North.
