Location
Carrington Street sits within the boundary of an Old and Historic District and R-63 Multi-Family Residential Zone. Carrington marks the connecting border between the Union Hill and Fairmount Neighborhoods.
Composition
The corridor stretches across 6 blocks and intersects with 14 streets. It is composed of cobblestone and “temporary repairs” are executed with asphalt. There is currently no sidewalk infrastructure for 80%+ of the street, however the street is in a walkable location with a walking score of 64.
Solution: Install sidewalk and human scale street light infrastructure. Create cost affective strategy for maintaining cobblestone at high pedestrian locations (crosswalks/intersections) while covering other portions of the road with asphalt permanently.
Width and Parking
Carrington Street is 24ft wide road stretching from Mosby St to 25th Street (20ft wide from 24th to 25th St). It allows for 2 way traffic (24th to 25th street block is east bound one way traffic) and street parking on both its sides but due to its thin width it cannot support both of these items and is a safety hazard.
Solution: Convert Carrington into an east bound one way street, which will support a sustained parking stock for the current residents and future developments and provide increased safety for drivers and pedestrians. Carrington traffic will run opposite and parallel to its sister one way street, Barton, which supports westbound traffic.
Demographics and Zoning
Approximately 5000 vehicles come into contact with Carrington Street each day, up from 3000 per day in 2016. 11 owners own more than half of the properties along the street. 2 triangular lots are owned by the city which exist at intersections of Carrington. There is a school, retirement home, 4 churches, and 2 affordable housing apartment complexes within a block radius of the street. There are approximately 112 housing units within a half block radius of the corridor with 50-100 new units scheduled within the next 5 years.
Solution: Execute NVCL,CCC, VCU Roadmap for Carrington Street, by adding public spaces to diminish the expansive footprint of the presently confusing intersections. These public spaces will sit next to many corner lots which are encouraged within the Richmond 300 Master Plan to be properties that have specific neighborhood-oriented uses. Together the multi-use medium density buildings and city property spaces will support and benefit each other.