Yesterday, the IQC team traveled to the town of Enid, Oklahoma. Enid has a population of around 50,000 people. This is surprising for a town with such a small Main Street area, but it serves as a hub for many surrounding smaller towns to come shop and entertain. IQC helped with a Main Street Enid project. The street was transformed for a day into a safer street in order to get feedback from the community and demonstrate that these changes can be done. Before the actual event, I was tasked with helping make some boards that would display facts and have interactive elements to place along the sidewalks. This involved a lot of time CNC milling, spray paint, and splinters. We cut out plywood boards and stands. I laser cut stencils with headings and information on them. We used those stencils to spray paint the boards. It was a long afternoon, but surprisingly fun, and I think the end result turned out pretty well. The day of the event, colorfully painted pallets were laid out down the length of Randolph Street to reduce the traffic to one lane in each direction. This is intended to slow traffic down, as there are frequent accidents involving pedestrians in downtown areas like this. Curb extensions were painted at the corners on either end of the street also to slow down turning traffic. A piano-painted mid-block crosswalk was rolled out to allow pedestrians an easier time crossing. Additionally, our signs were placed along the sidewalks to spark interest in pedestrians. One of the signs had maps of the area and a scale for people to see how long it would take them to walk between locations. Another map was painted with chalkboard paint and had chalk for people to write down how many steps they have taken today--the intent being to encourage friendly competition and more walking. A pop-up shop was opened in a vacant store with a variety of local homemade crafts, canned foods, and clothing.
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Amy HostetterCurrent student. Archives
January 2019
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