Lowell Wayfinding Master Plan
Making Your Way Downtown
Photo courtesy of the City of Lowell
This website has information and surveys about the Lowell Wayfinding Master Plan. Scroll down to learn more about the Plan and take surveys to provide feedback that we’ll use in making the Plan.
What is Wayfinding?
Wayfinding is a collection of signs and systems that guide people through a building, neighborhood, campus, or community, and enhance their understanding and experience of public space. As environments become more complicated, people need visual cues in the form of signs and landmarks, including maps , directions, and symbols to help guide them to their destinations. Effective wayfinding systems create a sense of well-being, safety, and security. When done well, a wayfinding system is accessible, identifiable, welcoming and helps contribute to create a sense of place.
The Project
The City of Lowell, in collaboration with the Lowell National Historic Park (LNHP), is developing a community-supported Wayfinding Master Plan.
This project will improve the experience when arriving to the city, locating parking nearest to destinations, and navigating on foot between LNHP attractions, commercial districts, and additional recreational and civic destinations.
The goal of the Wayfinding Master Plan is to make new wayfinding signs that identify walking routes so that they are clear, understandable, and easy to use. The new signs will:
- Help visitors find their destinations
- Tell people about new places to visit
- Make visitors feel comfortable and welcome
- Improve Lowell's "brand"
Analysis
The project team conducted analyses to identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities in Lowell's current wayfinding system. As a part of this analysis, we also conducted an initial community survey with over 170 responses in late 2020 to learn about the destinations and themes community members wanted. The results of these analyses are represented in the maps below.
Destination Analysis
Lowell is full of vibrant and exciting places, educational curiosities, and local events. When visitors arrive in the City, its important that they can easily find these attractions.
Route Analysis
Visitors arrive in Downtown Lowell from a variety of places and use all kinds of transportation options to get there, including car, train, bus, bike, and on foot.
Existing Signage Analysis
There are currently many different styles of permanent signs within walking distance (1 mile) of the Downtown. While these different signs can help people find their way to certain destinations, the signs are a mix of styles and colors and don’t create a cohesive sense of place.
Visioning
Using the arrows on the right, page through the slides below to see how Lowell is perceived and how the signage should look.
Analysis Development
After hearing from you, the project team conducted more analysis, diving deeper to understand the Project Area and how pedestrians move through it.
We developed analysis for walking decision points and routes.
To better understand wayfinding needs from a driver’s perspective, we developed analysis for vehicular decision points and parking.
The development of a wayfinding routing program identified the need to:
1) provide wayfinding to parking areas,
2) provide informational map kiosks near the parking areas and
3) provide directional signage that assists visitors in reaching their destinations.
The design team analyzed routing to each parking area in the downtown. This is the routing to HCID and the Leo A. Roy Municipal garages.
Project Updates
Pedestrian Wayfinding Concept
The City worked with our Working Group of partner organizations and the design team to eliminate alternatives and develop the following concept based on feedback from the first community survey. We are excited to hear your thoughts. Please review images and let us know what you like or dislike about them in the following comment boxes.
Our goal is to make visitors feel welcome and eager to explore Downtown Lowell on foot. We took community and partner input and made this design. This would replace the “Discover Lowell” signs and existing kiosks slowly as we identify funding. In addition, we’ll design vehicular signs as we find funding. The new kiosks would be in central locations, and the post-and-slat signs would lead people from garages and Gallagher Terminal to major destinations. Before we finalize the signs, what do you think?
Kiosk Map
This is the proposed map for the kiosks. Take a look and let us know what we can improve in the comment box below.
Destinations & Area Map (right)
Inset Downtown Map (right)
Thank you for your comments!