- No access
- No sidewalks
- Surrounded by highway and busy road w/ no crosswalk
- One park
- Few access points
- No amenities north of Old Vestal Rd
- Numerous dead ends
- No parks and few amenities nearby
- No sidewalks
- Unjustified limited access
- No parks
- No nearby parks, stores or amenities
- Multiple dead ends and highway separating neighborhoods
- Few amenities
- No sidewalks
- Six dead ends
- Rezone Single Family Suburban to Multi Family or Mixed Use
- Vestal neighborhoods could benefit from businesses in areas other than the parkway, where most of the traffic is. Would allow for residents to walk or bike to a place safely.
- Allowing for more housing in general would increase tax revenue, but also lower housing cost and give more options for lower income familys moving to Vestal.
- Build sidewalks on busier residential streets
- The vast majority of Vestal streets are more than wide enough for a single lane in both directions. Adding a sidewalk on streets like Burris, Lynnhurst, Jensen, and African would allow for more saftey for pedestrians and also less of a burden on plows in winter.
- Any infrastructure for pedestrians or alternative methods on the Parkway
- The parkway is Vestals busiest road, but has little to no place for people not in cars.
- Sidewalks along the whole parkway would be costly, but painted bicycle lanes are basically free and would benefit business, and reduce traffic allowing students and children to use amenities along the parkway.
- Make parks out of delapidated businesses
- Numerous sites on the parkway are vacant lots or buildings in disrepair that do nothing for the community.
- Pizza Hut
- Friendly's
- Storming Crab
- Subway by Twin Orchard Park
- Site of former Subway on corner of Main and 434
- These lots could be bought by the town and made into community centers, parks, temorary businesses, or plazas.
- Vestal could benefit from new businesses moving near parks after they are made.
- Numerous sites on the parkway are vacant lots or buildings in disrepair that do nothing for the community.
- Do something with vacant parking lots
- Numerous parking lots around the parkway have little to no use year round.
- Target, Pet Smart, & Khol's lots have 30-40% use year round.
- Barnes & Noble, & multiple lots in Town Square Mall have little to no use other than car shows in nicer months.
- Lot between Red Lobster and Olive Garden is almost never at even 50% capacity.
- Lot at Shoppes at Vestal (Old Navy) is typically at 40-50% use
- Campus plaza near Olum's is typically only at 30-40% use
- Vestal has made an attempt to put these lots to use (At Target plaza, two park benches were set up), however more further use of this land could be beneficial to town.
- Lots could be used for
- Spring/Summer Markets to use land EG. Russel Farms
- Urban Gardens
- Food Trucks
- Event Spaces (Stage at Target plaza would be a great view)
- Greenhouse/Temporary Botanical Garden
- Numerous parking lots around the parkway have little to no use year round.
- Stop permitting new drive-thru's and parking lots
- Vestal benefits from business, like 7 Brew Coffee, opening up and paying taxes to the town, but only in the short term.
- One business opening up with 50% of the land dedicated to parking means that no other business will want to take up that space after it closes. We have seen this happen with many other businesses (see #5 above)
- If this land was instead used for mixed use that had residential and commerce, the town would make more money off of the land and have a better chance of not closing it's doors because landlords make their money just maintaining an apartment.
- Liven up the parkway
- Vestal's Miracle Mile is only as good as it looks, and each year more and more asphalt is put in, while less and less greenery is grown around it.
- Putting in some shrubs, trees, or flowers in and around the parkway would signal drivers to slow down and also please residents and out of towners.