Will the new Bagby be the best street in Houston?...

Avenida de las Americas used to be nine lanes wide. The street in front of the George R. Brown Convention Center was the city's best chance to make an impression on out-of-towners. What did they see?

Concrete, mostly. Oil-stained concrete.

Pedestrians had to scramble across it to get to Discovery Green and the hotels, restaurants and shops beyond. But Avenida wasn't just unsafe; it was boring. The street didn't give you a reason to walk there.

Now, after a three-year, $175 million redesign led by SWA Group was completed in 2017, it does. The city gave up some of the street, and the space filled with the city. Now, Avenida has just two lanes of traffic that move much more slowly — and more safely. Sycamores sway. Fountains splash. Its wide pedestrian plaza has outdoor furniture, art and — you can barely believe your eyes — actual pedestrians.

When the award-winning redesign was completed, Geoff Carleton, a principal with Traffic Engineers, Inc., remembers that Mayor Sylvester Turner said that what downtown needed next was a street just like it on the west side, where the city's performing arts and civic buildings are concentrated.

One year later, that is the hope behind $22 million more that downtown will spend to redesign Bagby Street.

BAGBY'S A LOT like Avenida used to be. It's not meant to be a "through" street you take all the way across the city, but it does move cars well — an analysis prepared by Traffic Engineers and other firms found that it performs at an "acceptable or better level-of-service." The one snarl happens at Walker, where cars are trying to merge on I-45 after work. (That, Carleton says, should be taken care of when TxDOT completes the North Houston Highway Improvement Project.)

What Bagby doesn't do is move people, not in any sense of the word. It's a patchwork of typical Houston problems (it's boring, it's unsafe), nowhere worse than when it passes beneath Bayou Place, where wheelchair ramps are crumbling and the sidewalk is barricaded by dumpsters and a shipping container.

"I see a street that is not hospitable or inviting to people surrounded by uses that should attract them," Carleton says.

GRAY MATTERS: I want to walk. But Houston won't let me.

Uses: He means that Bagby passes by Sesquicentennial Park, the aquarium, the Hobby Center, City Hall and Hermann Square, the library, Sam Houston Park and Tranquillity Park — all major civic attractions — but it doesn't connect them. Even as it touches all these places you want to be, it's not a place you want to be.

You want to get it over with.

But preliminary renderings prepared by SWA Group of the Bagby Street Improvement Project show new, 21-foot-wide sidewalks, native plantings, interpretive signage, improved crosswalks and a two-way bicycle lane that could change that.

Soon, you'll be able to walk or bike safely and interestingly from Franklin to Dallas. The project was inspired in part by the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, which is about an "experience," Carleton says. "You can think of telling a story as you travel the corridor."

The Downtown Redevelopment Authority has hired engineering and consulting firm Jones|Carter to see the project through. More design and construction — including the modernization of the just-as-important-after-Hurricane-Harvey below-the-street infrastructure — should be completed by June 2021.

When it's done, Houston will have the first part of the Green Loop, a five-mile transportation and recreation network that will connect downtown, inside and out.

Unlike Avenida, which was a response to investments in and around Discovery Green, the Bagby project, says Bob Eury, the executive director of Downtown Houston and president of Central Houston, is "anticipating the other improvements to come. Every month, you see more evidence of the direction we're headed."

IN THE past, you might have been able to blame Houston for only developing what's derided as "drive-to urbanism." We have theaters and museums, restaurants and parks — but you had to get in your car to get there.

But the Avenida and Bagby projects are just urbanism. They connect. They try to answer questions Houston hasn't always been good at asking: Can a street become more than just a way to move cars? Can it become a place people want to be?

LISTEN: Designing a more walkable Houston

Even as Houston continues to garner praise for its investment in public spaces — downtown, Jones Plaza is set to be transformed from a hot, barren thing into a grassy park where people will want to linger before and after shows — it hasn't invested in the public realm. Sidewalks are in bad shape — or they're not even there. Crosswalks are few and far between. Intersections are designed for speed.

Meanwhile, pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities pile up. Frustration is boiling over.

Discovery Green showed us that major investments — even risky ones — can pay off. Skeptics didn't think anyone would use it. Since then, there has been a $1.3 billion net increase in property value around the park. Will an investment in Bagby pay off in the same way?

Allyn West runs Gray Matters. Find him on Twitter @allynwest or email him at allyn.west@chron.com.

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