We love Kansas City Street's new look between Fifth Street and Mount Rushmore Road.

Pedestrians stroll wide sidewalks of decorative colored concrete. Bicyclists have their very own designated bike lane between the sidewalk and the newly resurfaced street. Plenty of park benches encourage people to slow down and enjoy the garden-like corners filled with plantings that frame each intersection. Attractive period street lights harken back to an earlier time and bathe the three-block stretch in a warm, inviting glow.

Walking there on a recent crisp fall evening, it felt a little like stepping into a Currier and Ives print while looking toward a more vibrant future for downtown Rapid City.

Surface improvement projects like this one help keep the downtown core of any city viable and the Rapid City Council is wise to fund them. We especially like them when they can be incorporated into larger projects to upgrade underground water and sewer utilities or resurface streets.

That was the case for the Kansas City Street redo. Its cosmetic elements all cost extra money, but were a small percentage of the approximately $3 million spent to improve aging infrastructure. We think it was money well spent.

The real success of this downtown improvement project is not only in its aesthetically-pleasing result, but in the community involvement that surrounded it from start to finish.

Property owners and other stakeholders along Kansas City were invited to be part of the conversation about the street renovation before it started, and city engineering staff, contractors and the project's designer, FourFront Design Inc., kept the businesses and churches that line the street informed and involved at weekly progress meetings.

That's good government. It is an and an approach that will be duplicated in the next five phases of the downtown improvement project that are expected to stretch into 2015.

City officials will solicit more input on Phase II early in 2008, with construction tentatively scheduled for 2009.

We appreciate the new pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly feel of Kansas City Street. It makes downtown a more inviting place to spend time, which ultimately affects the economic success of the area and the quality of life we all enjoy here.

We hope more of downtown Rapid City soon looks the same.