Lynchburg, Virginia

LYNCHBURG, V I RGINI A are taking the opportunity to re-imagine the streetscape as contributing to the sense of place throughout downtown. I’m a Millennial and I live in downtown Lynchburg. I like to be able to walk to work and get on the bike trail. As we transform our downtown from just a place that you have to get through to a place you want to stay, we’re also doing a tremendous amount of base infrastructure work. This work has become necessary due to age but also because there’s been so much redevelopment downtown that, for instance, the power grid won’t support further development. So, we’re taking the opportunity to make sure that we are investing as aggressively as we possibly can in core infrastructure that makes continued development possible and, at the same time, a more beautiful place. “At the moment, we’re doing just that on Main Street. Working with our electrical provider, we are replacing the electric system, the water and sewer system, the streetscape; it’s going to be a completely different place when it’s complete. While we have done a tremendous amount of work in downtown for a few years, it really has heated up in the past year, and will continue for the next five to seven years, as we make sure that we are creating a place that functions and where people and businesses want to be. “Of course we have other ongoing improvements throughout the city. Certainly, downtown is a huge focus for us, but we have a whole city that we serve, and we think the entirety of Lynchburg is its selling point. There are great and vibrant neighborhoods to live in around our historic districts and throughout the City. While we reinvest in public spaces, we also want to make sure that our transportation network is modernized so the people can easily travel in multi-modal ways in the City. Lynchburg is a physically large city, land-wise, compared to our population, so it is not as dense as it could be, so we need to improve roads and bridges and help people move efficiently throughout the city.