By KERRY STEINHOFER

kerry.steinhofer@amnews.com

After asking for input from downtown merchants, the Heart of Danville has selected eight safety and appearance projects to work on during this fiscal year.

The projects selected by the Heart of Danville include newly painted pedestrian crosswalks, speed limit enforcement, improved sidewalk conditions, re-routing of pass-through truck traffic, pedestrian wayfinding and new Main Street shrubs and trees, among others.

A recent Heart of Danville newsletter said, “The Heart of Danville Board and Perseveration and Design Committee will work on next steps to keep these projects a priority at the city to ensure their implementation during the 2016-17 fiscal year.”

In the newsletter, the organization shared how at its 2016 Heart of Danville Merchant Breakfast series, there has been discussion revolving around pedestrian safety issues in the downtown area and improving the overall streetscape. Merchants in the area have made suggestions to focus on these two issues for the remainder of the year.

After a board meeting in June, the Heart of Danville created a survey to help determine the priorities of the safety and streetscape issues.

“The survey was a simple list of solutions under the themes of pedestrian safety and downtown appearance primarily geared to be accomplished locally with the city’s support and without major funding,” according to the Heart of Danville.

Many of the suggestions on the survey were provided by local merchants from a small group discussion held at the March, April and June breakfast meetings.

According to the newsletter, in July and August, members of the board visited several local businesses and asked them what their top three project priorities were for both safety and streetscape.

Once the board collected responses from the merchants, the results were shared with City Manager Ron Scott and City Engineer Earl Coffey. The results were also shared with the merchants at the merchant breakfast on Aug. 16.

According to the newsletter, the city of Danville “has committed to exploring implementation of several of the key top survey results.”

The board will continue to share information about future updates made to the projects in their monthly newsletter and the merchant breakfast meetings. The last meeting of the year will be held 8 a.m. Oct. 18 at Danville’s recently upgraded water treatment facility, at 387 E. Lexington Ave.