GS&P’s Mike Sewell and Louis Johnson Talk Town Branch Commons

September 4, 2018

Gresham, Smith and Partners announces that Active Transportation Service Line Leader Mike Sewell, P.E., and Senior Landscape Architect Louis Johnson, PLA, ASLA, presented a case study on GS&P-designed Town Branch Commons at the Indiana Bike Walk Summit on Aug. 29 in Indianapolis.

“Louis and I enjoyed presenting at this year’s Indiana Bike Walk Summit,” commented Sewell. “Town Branch Commons is a great case study on how planners, designers and engineers can improve connectivity, introduce environmental benefits and showcase the community around them.”

A summary of the presentation follows.

Designing Like We Live: Bringing Town Branch Commons to Life
Presentation by Mike Sewell, P.E., and Louis Johnson, PLA, ASLA

Greenways are an essential component of a vibrant community. Balanced transportation corridors that provide options for mobility improve health and well-being, fuel economic vitality and create a more vibrant and viable environment.

In 2015, Gresham, Smith and Partners reached out to SCAPE Landscape Architecture to see how the firm could help bring the vision for Town Branch Commons, a multimodal trail, greenway and park system in downtown Lexington, Ky., to life. The 3.2-mile long urban greenway will accommodate pedestrians and cyclists, connecting Lexington’s urban core to the Bluegrass countryside, including neighborhoods, parks and trail systems. When complete, the project will create more than 22 continuous miles of protected bike and pedestrian paths. The GS&P project team will also improve pedestrian, bicycle and vehicular safety but integrating a complete streets design, including separated bicycle and pedestrian facilities, enhanced pedestrian crossings and intersection safety improvements.

As they lead the firm’s in-house transportation, urban planning and landscape architecture teams in this collaborative effort, Mike Sewell and Louis Johnson are taking steps to improve connectivity, emphasize placemaking and honor Lexington’s natural history. Session attendees learned how greenways and trail systems contribute to community vitality and about design strategies from the Town Branch Commons project.