Perhaps, changing how we look at downtown Lewiston starts with changing how we actually look at it.

Pine Street, downtown, runs one way between Canal and Sabattus streets. It’s a vein that relieves pressure on the city’s two primary arteries: Main and Lisbon streets. Today, Pine Street has little aesthetic or architectural significance. It is notable for serving its function as a road.

So, turn it around. Make it one way the other direction, so instead of taking travelers away from downtown, it brings them in. All of a sudden, Pine Street becomes a stunning avenue, with its former beginning now a red-brick-lined destination that perfectly frames the towering Bates Mill cupola and clock tower.

We floated this idea on the Web, and with a few folks, and were given a host of reasons why it cannot be done. Most of them deal with existing traffic patterns, inadequate intersections, etc. But just about everyone had their own suggestion for changing downtown for the better.

That’s the point. For years, the Twin Cities have looked for ways to re-envision the downtown with big ideas: convention centers, tax policies, entertainment districts, etc. Maybe it is better to start looking at downtown anew by literally looking at downtown in new ways.

Turn some streets around. Re-think the corridors that bring people into, and away from, the business district that’s the source of so much community pride and consternation. The big ideas depend on so many variables. Are we doing enough of the little things we can control?

So, why should Pine just be a street, when it could be a boulevard? Let’s look at a different direction.