LANDRUM – The City of Landrum listened to a presentation on a pedestrian plan created by Alta Planning and Design during city council’s regular meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 10.

Tee Coker, planning associate with Alta Planning and Design out of Greenville, S.C., presented potential projects for Landrum’s intersections, and asked the city to consider adopting the pedestrian plan as a guide that will be included in their comprehensive plan.

No action was taken on adding this plan to the city’s comprehensive plan, a document outlining the city’s goals and potential projects for the next decade. The city expects to adopt their comprehensive plan in August.

According to Coker, the pedestrian plan is part of a three-year project to develop pedestrian plans for 16 communities throughout the state, including Landrum. Coker said key elements of the plan include community engagement and safe access to healthy foods.

Alta Planning began creating the pedestrian plan for Landrum’s intersections and sidewalks in May 2015, according to Coker. In October 2016, Alta drafted a final plan for improvements to Landrum’s intersections.

Coker said that key issues for the public at the city’s previous comprehensive plan meetings included a lack of sidewalks in the city and safety at intersection crosswalks. Poor lighting, noise pollution and dogs off leashes are also issues Coker said the public is concerned about.

Over the next 10 years, Coker said Landrum could focus on “activating” Brookwood Park with free concerts and trails in addition to improving the intersection of Hwy. 14 and U.S. 176 with repainted crosswalks using white stripes. He added that a pedestrian walking path could be created by the city along the railroad next to U.S. 176.

The city could add a crosswalk and signage across North Randolph Avenue to connect to Northside Community Park, according to Coker. Replacing the red brick crosswalks in downtown Landrum with high visibility paint crosswalks was also included as a priority project in the presentation.

Another priority project illustrated by Coker involves parking on North Trade Avenue. Coker said the city could take out the diagonal parking on the railroad side of the street to replace it with parallel parking and leave the diagonal parking on the storefront side of the street.