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A narrower Main Street between Washington and Union streets, to be beautified with trees and shrubs, has won tentative approval from a majority of city councilmen.
The beautification plan would cover the entire length of the street, including the section north from Washington Street owned by the state.
The city now has one of the widest main streets in the country, but, under the new plan, it would be narrowed to two lanes, with parking restricted to coves set in the narrowed sides. Chamber of Commerce officials want to make certain the proposed loop roads of Broad Street and DeKoven Drive would carry the added traffic that probably would be eliminated from Main Street. The new proposal was seen as a compromise of other plans which had included closing the portion of Main Street and also for creating half moon curves to slow the traffic in another plan.
The plan is seen as improving the streets appearance, officials said, and creating greater pedestrian areas.
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According to articles in the Courant, the idea of reducing automobile traffic on Main Street (including some proposals to make it a pedestrian only mall) was quite vigorously debated for many years. In a September, 1976 article about the new president of the Chamber of Commerce ("CofC Leader Has Eye on Main Street"), the Courant reported that the narrowing of Main Street was still under consideration, but it had "met with substantial opposition..." Interestingly, the new president in 1976 was Robert G. Comstock, who had been executive vice president of the Greater Keene (NH) Chamber of Commerce. Keene had been the one town with a wider Main Street than Middletown, and Comstock told the Courant that one of his accomplishments in Keene was to narrow Main Street to form a semi-mall situation. He was apparently unable to accomplish the same thing in our city.
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