Return Downtown Streets to Two-Way

[helsinki]

[I don't see a thread on this subject; please collapse if there is one.]

Downtown streets are pretty much all one-way pairs:

1. Marquette & 2nd Avenue
2. 4th Ave & 5th Ave
3. Park & Portland

4. 3rd St & 4th St
5. 5th St & 6th St
6. 7th St & 8th St
8. 9th St & 10th St
9. 11th St & 12th St

By my count, that's eighteen one-way streets.

One way streets seem to be great at getting people into and out of downtown quickly. While on the one hand this may be a positive thing (definitely for suburban commuters it is), it encourages faster driving. I think this is one of the reasons that downtown Minneapolis streets suck to walk around: you have to high-tail it across the intersection and you absolutely can't jaywalk anywhere because a car can come out of nowhere at top speed (and the streets are so effing wide). It also apparently increases the likelihood that collisions will be fatal.

Second, the one-ways seem to be bad for street-level retail. They reduce storefront visibility, since you only have people coming from one direction. I've heard some poorly-thought-through objections to this point; so to explain - take Park and Portland for example. People use Park in the morning, to get into downtown. They use Portland in the evening, to get out of downtown. So each goes massively underused for half the day. This results in fewer customers.

Third, they create some preposterous spaghetti-junctions where Hiawatha Avenue meets downtown (from the south), and where 394 and the 3rd and 4th street viaducts meet downtown from the north. These eat up developable land and make adjacent developable land undesirable, because they're right next to freeway on/off ramps.

So for a number of reasons, it seems like returning one-way pairs to two-way streets might be a good idea.

Thoughts?

[Viktor Vaughn]

When the Marq2 project was built, Marquette and 2nd became way more pleasant. I'm generally in favor of converting one-ways to two-ways, but I would have never thought the conversion with double contra bus lanes would be such a dramatic improvement.

Also, it's already hard to remember how terrible Hennepin used to be as a one-way street. I'd love to see Hennepin and 1st ave converted to two-ways through NE. That may be the simpliest way to dramatically improve the walkability of Old St Anthony.

[mplser]

This would dramatically improve downtown east to people who walk as well.

[twincitizen]

I don't have a problem with one-way pairs when they are kept to reasonable widths with bumpouts and traffic calming measures. Anything more than 2 through lanes is totally unacceptable. 3-4 through lanes on a one-way is not a street...that is a highway. As long as the streets are kept to reasonable widths, restricting car speeds, one-ways are actually more ped/bike friendly. For example, peds only have to worry about cars coming from one direction.

Many of these could be converted to two ways though. It is not necessary to have the entire downtown as one-way pairs. Then again, one-way streets with excess lane capacity would lend themselves to exclusive bus lanes in ways that a two-way cannot.

Not downtown, but I live on 28th Street just east of Lyndale. From the point where 28th becomes a one-way at Hennepin, all the way east to Blaisdell, it is a comfortable 2 lanes with parking usually on one side. When you get to Blaisdell it balloons to 3 through lanes for no apparent reason and the parking goes away. As you cross the bridge over 35W into West Phillips, it grows to FOUR through lanes. In terms of safety and livability (directly correlated to car speed and crossing distance), the difference is night and day despite very similar traffic counts on the 2-lane stretch vs. the 4 lane stretch.

[Wedgeguy]

One of the 2 questions you have to solve for all 2 ways is air quality which comes from the second aspect of gridlock due to numerous turn lanes. We look at it as good in principal and not so good in the real after affects.

[mulad]

Ehhh...

"Gridlock" (congestion) has been used as a justification for speeding up traffic flows. I think that's been one of the most insidious ideas to ever circulate. An idling car generates pollution at a single point, while a moving car spreads it around -- and actually uses more fuel and generates more pollution per unit of time (since the engine is actually under load and is performing more work). Making traffic more free-flowing was supposed to magically improve air quality, but it ended up just generating more traffic and pollution through induced demand.

[min-chi-cbus]

When the Marq2 project was built, Marquette and 2nd became way more pleasant. I'm generally in favor of converting one-ways to two-ways, but I would have never thought the conversion with double contra bus lanes would be such a dramatic improvement.

Also, it's already hard to remember how terrible Hennepin used to be as a one-way street. I'd love to see Hennepin and 1st ave converted to two-ways through NE. That may be the simpliest way to dramatically improve the walkability of Old St Anthony.

Does anyone know if Hennepin/1st Avenue became TWO distinct nightlife districts/streets as a result of the one-way design of the streets? When they WERE both one-way, I always thought it was neat to drive ALL the way down Hennepin and see all the stuff going on, and then turn around near Washington Ave and then drive most of the way down 1st Ave before turning East to go to the cheap parking where Target Field now sits -- the whole ride was bumper-to-bumper!

[min-chi-cbus]

A compromise solution to the one-way vs. two-way argument is to make only the arterial streets one-way to keep traffic moving into and out of the city at high capacities (e.g. Washington Ave) and all of the others plus streets the city decides to be more pedestrian-friendly (e.g. 1st Ave) two-way streets.

[helsinki]

A compromise solution to the one-way vs. two-way argument is to make only the arterial streets one-way to keep traffic moving into and out of the city at high capacities (e.g. Washington Ave) and all of the others plus streets the city decides to be more pedestrian-friendly (e.g. 1st Ave) two-way streets.

Even if, for the sake of argument, that were a desirable solution, the problem it presents would be pairing Washington with another one-way in the opposite direction. That that would have to be 3rd St. Admittedly,some cities do re-direct a single street every day (ie, in the morning it flows one-way into town, in the afternoon the entire street switches to one-way in the opposite direction). But with Washington I think this would do more harm than good.

[RailBaronYarr]

Stop worrying about facilitating the amount of cars that would cause major traffic jams and things will solve themselves. Convert most to 2-ways, get rid of lights at intersections with a small roundabouts to calm speeds and allow for free-flowing traffic in all directions. And hey, if it's still gridlocked, people in the suburbs have these great new transit choices to get in to downtown for work and sporting events (SWLRT, 35W line, Hiawatha, CC, Red Line BRT to Hiawatha, Northstar, SW buses, etc etc).

The side benefit is that the entirety of downtown will have fewer high-speed cars, more sidewalk width, easier street crossings, and much more that will removie even MORE barriers to people wanting to live there.

[Nick]

FWIW, I just finished my daily walk from 4th Street to Loring Park, and from a pedestrian perspective I actually like one ways a little bit. I realize there are traffic arguments for them (increased capacity) and against them (confusing) but I also hear all the time that it creates a hostile environment for pedestrians. I imagine it does in DTE where it's a moonscape for all kinds of reasons, but at least along Nicollet Mall, it's kinda nice not having to think for that extra half-second when crossing the street: Are there cars coming from the left? No. Next street on the right? No. You're already dodging panhandlers and street canvassers (UGH) and people looking at cellphones and girls swim teams from Owatonna wandering down from the Hyatt as is. Not that that it would be a gigantic mental burden to comprehend traffic if they were two way streets, but I just felt like saying that.

[UptownSport]

An idling car generates pollution at a single point, while a moving car spreads it around -- and actually uses more fuel and generates more pollution per unit of time (since the engine is actually under load and is performing more work). Making traffic more free-flowing was supposed to magically improve air quality, but it ended up just generating more traffic and pollution through induced demand.

Respectfully, that's just not true at all- and it makes no sense-
I've never seen a car as a continuous running street fixture, it HAS to move at some time: accelerating uses much more fuel than cruising at 35MPH; braking produces heat and friction material particulates.

There's new systems to auto shutdown idling cars

http://www.automobilemag.com/green/news ... stem_siss/

Of course, if you have a non-hybrid you can turn the little thing on steering column to 'off' if you're expecting to idle for some time ...

[min-chi-cbus]

FWIW, I just finished my daily walk from 4th Street to Loring Park, and from a pedestrian perspective I actually like one ways a little bit. I realize there are traffic arguments for them (increased capacity) and against them (confusing) but I also hear all the time that it creates a hostile environment for pedestrians. I imagine it does in DTE where it's a moonscape for all kinds of reasons, but at least along Nicollet Mall, it's kinda nice not having to think for that extra half-second when crossing the street: Are there cars coming from the left? No. Next street on the right? No. You're already dodging panhandlers and street canvassers (UGH) and people looking at cellphones and girls swim teams from Owatonna wandering down from the Hyatt as is. Not that that it would be a gigantic mental burden to comprehend traffic if they were two way streets, but I just felt like saying that.

Another poster already touched on this, but said that the one-ways should be limited to no more than 2 lanes to keep it pedestrian-friendly.

[Tcmetro]

As a pedestrian, I like the one ways because they are so much easier to jaywalk.

[woofner]

Maybe I'm just a worry wart, but I try to look both ways before crossing one-ways as a result of having frequently seen people driving the wrong way down them. Of course it's still typically easier to cross against the signal on one-ways due to reduced queue lengths.

There are definitely some streets that are crying out for two-way conversion (9th St and 10th east of Marquette or so), but I agree with those who prioritize lane reduction. Eventually I think the goal should be forcing more turns so that drivers are made aware of the pedestrian-oriented nature of their environment and freeway hangover is reduced.

[Nick]

As a pedestrian, I like the one ways because they are so much easier to jaywalk.

Thiiiiiis.

[helsinki]

There was an article on this issue at the Atlantic Cities about a month ago that I completely missed:

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commut ... eets/4549/

While I admit that it is comforting to know you can cross the street safely because you only have to pay attention in one direction, I still think streets suffer when everyone (drivers, bikers, walkers) gets lazy. Complexity keeps people on their toes. The anecdote about Swedish traffic fatalities plummeting precipitously in the year after the country switched from driving on the left to driving on the right is a great example of this.

But I completely agree about lane reduction taking priority. Especially in DTE. Three lanes of traffic in one direction is absurd.

[min-chi-cbus]

There was an article on this issue at the Atlantic Cities about a month ago that I completely missed:

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commut ... eets/4549/

While I admit that it is comforting to know you can cross the street safely because you only have to pay attention in one direction, I still think streets suffer when everyone (drivers, bikers, walkers) gets lazy. Complexity keeps people on their toes. The anecdote about Swedish traffic fatalities plummeting precipitously in the year after the country switched from driving on the left to driving on the right is a great example of this.

But I completely agree about lane reduction taking priority. Especially in DTE. Three lanes of traffic in one direction is absurd.

What you are indirectly referring to is "mindfulness" (or "mindlessness", your mind's tendency to prefer automatic thoughts than staying in the present and being mindful of your actions). And you're completely correct (as are the Swedes)!

[Viktor Vaughn]

As a pedestrian, I like the one ways because they are so much easier to jaywalk.

I agree. One-ways do seem easier to jaywalk midblock.

Maybe I'm just a worry wart, but I try to look both ways before crossing one-ways as a result of having frequently seen people driving the wrong way down them.

Yep, me too. I never cross a one-way without looking both ways first. And if there's a Twins game going on, I'll probably check to see if someone's coming the wrong way when I'm halfway across the street too.

As a pedestrian, I think one-ways are most dangerous at intersections. Think of the intersection of South 9th Street and Portland Avenue. Outside of rush hour those streets are mostly empty. Cars heading south would take the right on 9th street at 30 mph and end up in the middle or even far left lane after their turn. My wife recalled the worst offenders were generally police cars. Someone walking across 9th would have no chance to get out of the way. Crossing near the intersection but not quite in the crosswalk is extremely dangerous at these intersections. I saw many accidents at the intersection when I lived nearby. On various occasions, I saw a pedestrian & two bicyclists hit by cars, and many car accidents.

Three lane one-ways encourage people to drive too fast and take corners recklessly.

[UptownSport]

One way streets seem to be great at getting people into and out of downtown quickly.

it encourages faster driving.

Second, the one-ways seem to be bad for street-level retail.

Third, they create some preposterous spaghetti-junctions

My understanding is people want to do away with an admittedly efficient means of transport ostensibly because it's not good for window shopping.