Crews have completed work on a “road diet” that will narrow Schwenk Drive while creating 60-70 curbside parking spaces. The project comes as Mayor Steve Noble feuds with the Common Council over his strategy of replacing municipal parking lots with affordable housing.

The new street scheme narrows Schwenk Drive, currently a four-lane divided roadway, to one driving lane in each direction. The former driving lanes meanwhile have been redesignated and restriped as curbside parking. The covers Schwenk Drive from Washington Avenue to the Kingston Plaza entrance.

“We are pleased to announce that, after the recent paving, our Department of Public Works has done a great job re-striping on Schwenk Drive, giving the roadway a new configuration that allows for on-street parking,” said Noble in a statement "This new ‘road diet’ will improve safety for drivers and pedestrians and will add parking to serve our Uptown business district.”

The expansion of parking Uptown was announced two days after city lawmakers voted six-to-three to override Noble’s veto of a resolution introduced by Ward 2 Alderman Michael Tierney that would place a moratorium on the sale or transfer of any city-owned parking lot to a private developer. Noble vetoed the plan because it said it could potentially interfere with affordable housing projects by private developers at municipal parking lots on North Front Street, close to Schwenk Drive and on Field Court in Midtown. In both instances the city solicited plans for the sites and developer’s plans for the projects are currently in the design phase.

The road diet also fits in with Noble’s broader agenda of undoing the legacy of 1960’s Urban Renewal, which saw densely populated working-class neighborhoods demolished to make for a more suburban-feeling, more car-focused city. Schwenk Drive was built during that period to facilitate travel the creation of Kingston Plaza and the Dutch Village apartment complex which stands at the site of a neighborhood that was demolished during Urban Renewal.

Earlier this year, at Noble’s request the council voted to redesignate Schwenk Drive as a “Main Street” transect under the city’s new form-based zoning code. The new designation clears the way for denser construction larger buildings and more retail. Noble told lawmakers that his intent was to incorporate Schwenk Drive into the adjacent Uptown Business District by making it less of a suburban-style arterial and more of a bustling urban street with foot traffic and mixed-use buildings. Such projects are currently in the design phase at the site of a former Kia dealership near the Fair Street Extension intersection and at Frog Alley at the other end of Schwenk Drive.