exaggerated Speeding This was so popular on the parallel one-way streets running through a huge electronics factory that Indianapolis residents took to referring to the pair as a “race track” similar to the city’s famous Speedway a few miles west.
Michigan and New York Streets, originally two-way roads, were converted to one-way cross roads in the 1970s to help thousands of RCA workers quickly travel to and from their shifts building television sets or pressing vinyl records. But after the RCA factory closed in 1995, the barren roads suddenly became more tempting Drivers with lead feet — until last year, when city officials finally converted them back to two-way streets.
“Opening and transforming these streets has been a shift in how people think about this corridor,” said James Taylor, who runs a nearby community center.
Adopting the oft-repeated mantra that “paint is cheap,” transportation planners across the United States—particularly in mid-sized cities—have transformed their one-way streets into multi-way streets. They view the move as one of the easiest ways to do so Improve safety And made The city center is more attractive For shoppers, diners and potential residents.
Almost no major streets in the United States were created as one-way roads, said Dave Amos, an assistant professor of city and regional planning at California Polytechnic State University. Two-way streets were the norm, before mass migration to the suburbs prioritized faster commutes Possibility of walking in the city centre.
“One-way streets are designed to move cars quickly and efficiently,” Amos said. “So when that’s your goal, Infantry And cyclists are secondary almost by design, which makes them even more vulnerable.
But the tendency to speed is not the only reason why one-way streets are less safe.
Wade Walker, an engineer at Kittelson & Partners who have worked on street transformation projects in Lakeland, Florida; Lynchburg, Virginia; Chattanooga, Tennessee, said there is a misconception that one-way streets are safer because people on foot only have to look in one direction to see oncoming traffic. Confusion arises when one-way streets combine with two-way streets to form a street City networkHe said.
Pedestrian crossing a Signaled intersection On two-way streets you can expect to encounter vehicles in a certain sequence: those turning left onto green, going straight, then turning Right on red. But when one-way streets are included, there are 16 possible sequences depending on the type and direction of the intersecting roads, Walker said.
“It’s not about the number of conflicts, but the way those conflicts happen,” he said.
The city of Louisville, Kentucky, located about two hours south of Indianapolis, is working to restore one-way streets to their original two-way traces. The state is leading an ongoing project to reconvert a stretch along Main Street that passes landmarks such as Louisville Slugger KFC Museum Yum! Central Square and a minor league baseball field.
One of the city’s biggest redesigns this year will occur in the city’s majority-black western part, where many roads were changed to one-way roads in the 1970s to feed a new interstate bridge over the Ohio River. However, it decimated neighborhoods and isolated the once-thriving community from downtown.
“All of these small stores and local businesses just fizzled out over time because of the disconnect,” said Michael King, the city’s assistant director of transportation planning. “It’s as if this is the road that will get me here very quickly.”
Within three years after some two-way streets in Chattanooga were converted to one-way streets, business vacancies skyrocketed and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga became “closed” to prevent students from having to cross a dangerous road, Walker said.
In 2022, nearly two decades after the road was redesigned, he returned to find that the campus had expanded across it and construction had boomed.
When Lynchburg, Virginia, launched a long-discussed plan to change its downtown Main Street to two lanes, Rodney Taylor expressed concerns that it would ruin his restaurant by blocking delivery vehicles. After the city completed the department in 2021, he acknowledged the concerns were unfounded.
“The important thing to do is admit when you’re wrong,” he said. “And I was completely wrong.”
Many residents also changed their tune in Austin, Texas, when the city began reconverting some one-way streets in its urban core, said Adam Greenfield, executive director of Safe Streets Austin.
“It just worked,” said Greenfield, who is now lobbying the city to get rid of its one-way streets. “That’s what you’ll find with these conversions – they’ll be made and then people will immediately ask: ‘Why didn’t we do this 20 years ago?’
after chicago After the city went in the opposite direction last year and suddenly changed some of its two-way streets to one-way in the busy West Loop restaurant district, a politician representing a nearby district received numerous calls from confused constituents.
“Even if this is the right move to make these streets one-way, it certainly doesn’t make sense not to ask neighbors for input,” Councilman Bill Conway said.
Now that Indianapolis has finished redesigning Michigan and New York streets, there are 10 more conversions underway next, said Mark St. John, chief engineer for the city’s Department of Public Works. The total cost of these projects is estimated at approximately $60 million, including approximately $25 million from the 2023 federal grant.
James Taylor, who runs the community center near the old RCA plant, said it’s too early to know the full impact. However, some business owners pointed out plans to build along the redesigned streets, which Taylor says still looks a little strange.
“I’ve been driving around this neighborhood for 30 years,” he said. “It’s all familiar, but you approach it from a completely different perspective.”