I stepped out into the gorgeous downtown night and the temperature was just right. The streetlight over on the corner of Brown and Lee illuminated some people walking up Lee Street over to Center and they were talking and laughing and just around the corner, up Brown Street at the Taphouse the door was open to the beautiful night, and it was Thursday night, Karaoke night, so there was raucous singing from the revelers…

Woah-oh, we’re halfway there…

A good crowd milled around outside, and people walked up and down Baker Street each way and out of my sight. Everything was good, so don’t take the next part as some sort of complaint. It’s called a transition. I’m painting a picture here.

Oh, that reminds me. This time of year, every high schooler and college grad or prom attendee comes downtown to take pictures. Yesterday I saw a few young ladies almost get hit by a speeding car. Someone had to get the few blocks from Fisk to Center on Lee Street really, really fast. Imagine that!

Anyway, I was reminded of a time when we were in San Antonio for our anniversary. We couldn’t afford to stay on the Riverwalk, so we got a cheap motel room quite a few blocks away. Millions had been spent to attract people to the downtown and Riverwalk area – this was maybe twenty-five years ago – but it was kind of a pain getting around if you were just outside the Riverwalk area. There was no Uber then, and there was no way we would get a taxi, even though I don’t remember seeing any. I remember thinking that it was like a different world when you were down on the Riverwalk compared to when you had to go up on the street level. It was like going from Mogadishu and stepping right into a Paris café-lined street. A commensurate investment in traffic and other enforcement had not been made, so it was dangerous to cross some roads and the panhandlers were everywhere until you made it to the steps going down to the Riverwalk proper. Some of the panhandlers were aggressive, and if you crossed the street to avoid being accosted, you risked being hit by street racers or someone speeding and running lights trying to get home from work.

The city was trying to deal with a grackle problem, and every twenty or thirty minutes a shotgun blast would ring out, blanks fired ostensibly to keep the pigeons and grackles from landing, but I don’t think it worked. There were grackles and pigeons everywhere.

Do you like flashbacks within flashbacks?

When I was young, we lived not far from Dayton, Ohio, and back then Dayton had an extensive electric trolley system – the kind where there were wires overhead, and the trolleys had these poles sweeping backward from the roofs. The poles contacted the electric lines for powering the bus, and it was cool watching sparks fly when the busses would make a turn and just for a moment they would be disconnected from the wires, then they’d reconnect and continue on their way. Dayton, like Cincinnati, was an old-world city, very European now that I think back to it, and it was very walkable downtown – and you never felt disconnected from the rest of the city because of the trolley cars. You could park downtown and walk or take the trolley anywhere, and I never felt fear of dangerous traffic or from drug-addled and aggressive panhandlers because the police were present.

The point is that you can’t invest millions and millions of dollars in revitalization and not expect the bad things that come along with it. Millions of dollars spent changing Center Avenue to a beautiful walkable shopping and dining delight and you take your life into your own hands sometimes when you cross the street because the traffic is completely and wholly unregulated. That’s not an exaggeration. There is zero parking and traffic enforcement downtown. I’ve lived here downtown for two years now, and I’ve never seen a police car that wasn’t heading to the Manor responding to a call or responding to a traffic accident. I’ve never seen a car or truck pulled over for speeding or driving the wrong way on a one-way. I’ve never seen parking enforcement. I’ve never seen a ticket on a car parked in a clearly marked no parking zone. Never once. If anyone has ever been pulled over for racing downtown, nearly killing people backing out on Center, etc., I’ve never even heard about it.

You say “well, we don’t have the police resources to do anything downtown.” That’s not true. Putting a police vehicle on Anderson or Chandler watching Fisk or Center randomly once a week would stop most of that dangerous and deadly speeding. Once a week. Pulling some people over occasionally would send a good message.

But I digress…

Two things.

You need to be able to move people around seamlessly and safely in a cool way, and you have to make people feel safe coming here to spend their money.

I was at the Downtown Masterplan presentation a week or so ago. There was mention of the possibility of a trolley or shuttle van system. But it was an offhand mention, not part of the plan from what I could tell. There wasn’t a single mention of any downtown law enforcement. No cops on bikes. No traffic regulation or management.

Nearly every day I see people come out of the Brownwood Manor, some in scooters so they can be mobile, and then almost get hit by cars driving three times the speed limit up Center or on Lee Street. The racing down Baker Street or on Fisk when revelers are sometimes hanging out in the street can be frightening.

What if there was a cool way to get people around downtown and to the outskirt hotels and motels? What if people could come to the very expensive music venue the city is building and those people could jump on a trolley car to safely get over to the shopping and other food/drink venues downtown? What if we slowed down the dangerous traffic and gave people an alternative way to see all the sights and visit the museums and clubs and restaurants and cool shops?

I remember being in San Francisco many years ago (when it was safe and clean) and the trolley cars were cool. They were a big tourist attraction. Millions upon millions of people around the world only knew two things about San Francisco… Rice-a-Roni (the San Francisco treat!) and trolley cars. I would hazard to say that a good portion of the tourism to San Francisco back then was because of the trolley cars.

WHO’S GOING TO PAY FOR THIS?

Many cities this size have already solved the problem. Public/private solutions exist and could be beneficial to everyone. I can say this… once you’ve decided to spend millions of dollars getting people here you can’t treat them to the Fast and Furious world of handicapped people on scooters being run over by Maria cutting across town to miss the lights on Main while reading a text on her phone or John gunning his motor because he likes the sound and then plowing into a crowd of people pouring out of the Taphouse singing Living on a Prayer.

There has been a recent uptick in property crimes and other related problems downtown. That’s not a good thing, but it is a warning sign.

We have a new hotel opening up just on the edges of downtown, hopefully a major hotel project coming in the historic Brownwood Hotel, AirBnBs and private rentals going in all over the place. Let’s find a way to benefit everyone and also keep people safe.

Starting right now we should offer some kind of enforcement presence downtown. This could happen tomorrow. Ticket the speed racers and slow down the traffic. Make it safe. Then let’s have a conversation about some cool, tourist-attracting trolley busses to get people and their money here safely.

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Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear on Wednesdays and Sundays on the website.