Thomas Breen file photo
Church near Elm: Two-way street approacheth?
The city’s transit department is moving ahead with plans to convert a handful of downtown streets from one-way to two-way — and is seeking public input before deciding how many parking spots should remain on George Street, where protected bike lanes should go on York, and whether or not to place a Bus Rapid Transit lane in the middle of Church Street.
That’s the latest in a years-long city effort to make downtown streets safer and more convenient for all users of the road — pedestrians, cyclists, and bus riders included — by reversing traffic flows and cutting down on car speeds.
Back in May, the city’s Transportation, Traffic & Parking (TT&P) department, a city-hired consultant, and a downtown alder held an online-only public meeting to discuss a new study to convert several downtown streets from one-way to two-way.
The blocks covered by this study include the northbound lanes of York Street from Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard to Grove Street; the eastbound lanes of George Street from York to Church; the northbound lanes of Church from George to Chapel and from Wall to Grove; and the westbound lanes of Chapel from College to Park. (According to TT&P Director Sandeep Aysola, a number of other downtown blocks not included in this latest study — including Church from Chapel to Elm — were covered by a previous, already-completed two-way conversion study and are in various states of design and therefore closer to becoming a reality.)
After May’s meeting, Aysola told the Independent, his team and SLR Consulting and the South Central Regional Council of Governments (SCRCOG) gathered public feedback around how these to-be-converted downtown streets should look, and then used that to inform two different sets of “proposed concepts” for each stretch of road.
TT&P and SCRCOG presented those proposals at a sparsely attended in-person public meeting at 200 Orange St. on Oct. 18. The Independent recently met up with Aysola in his office on the ground level of that municipal office building to talk through what those latest design proposals are, and to help get the word out that his office is still soliciting public feedback.
To view the conceptual designs in full, click here or see below, and to provide comments and suggestions and other feedback on the proposals as they exist today, click here.
Thomas Breen file photo
City transit director Sandeep Aysola (right).
Aysola explained that his office has put together two “alternate” proposals for each stretch of roadway under study. All of the proposals will see see existing one-way streets converted to two-way. All will see a host of traffic calming measures implemented, including new crosswalks and raised intersections, as well as new bus shelters. The key differences between the alternates generally lie in how many on-street parking spaces remain or are removed and how much roadspace is dedicated to new elevated, protected bike lanes.
Aysola stressed that none of these proposals is final. They are “conceptual.” His office is looking for more public input before moving ahead with preliminary engineering and putting together more fully fleshed out designs, which in turn will take as-yet-unreceived state and federal money to make happen.
He also said his office is looking into which if any “quick builds” they can do to make some parts of these two-way street conversion projects happen sooner rather than later.
The conceptual proposals include:
• Two versions of Church Street from George to Elm with and without Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) express bus lanes in the middle of the road, and with and without fully protected bike lanes on both sides of the street;
• Two versions of York Street from MLK to Grove with and without fully protected bike lanes on both sides of the street, and with different levels of on-street parking, as well as a two-way cycletrack across the street from Toad’s;
• Two versions of Chapel from College to Park with different levels of on-street parking and protected bike lanes;
• One version of George from York to Church, with most on-street parking removed and new protected bike lanes on both sides of the street.
“This is not a bike lane project,” Aysola emphasized. “This is a safety, connectivity, and mobility project” that affects everything from BRT lanes to bus shelters to raised intersections to, yes, protected bike lanes and parking spots.
After his office receives more public feedback on these proposals, he said, it hopes to move from “conceptual” to “preferred” designs and preliminary engineering, which in turn will make it easier for the city to go after relevant state and federal funding for this project.
Conceptual Proposals For Church, Chapel, York, & George Redesigns
The global temperature and ice melting anomalies are now up to six standard deviations above the normal.
Any concepts that don’t include protected, physically separated bike lanes should be scrapped.
Why is the city suggesting (in some of these concepts) that it might prioritize five parking spaces over a protected bike lane that people of all ages can safely use?