One way streets converted to two way streets

[jhuntin1]

Delaware Street in downtown Indianapolis was one-way north and now has one or two southbound lanes. They go by Bankers Life Fieldhouse to the Eli Lilly headquarters.

[tradephoric]

Converting one-ways to two-ways is generally done as a traffic calming measure. One lane each way forces traffic to slow down compared to two lanes one way.

This is definitely not the case for Portland, Oregon.  The one-way streets in downtown are timed for 12.5 mph.  Portland's block spacings are also very close together so the traffic signals do a great job at regulating traffic speeds.  The aggressive driver is pretty much forced to drive 12.5 mph (any faster, and they are just speeding up to a red light).  If they were two-way streets, the signals would most likely be set up for simultaneous greens, where the faster you drive the more lights you'll be able to make it through (in that case, the aggressive driver has every incentive to drive as fast as possible).

[jbnv]

Jefferson St. in Lafayette, LA.

[english si]

A bit of the Strand (Duncannon Street to Charing Cross) and the east and south sides of Trafalgar Square were given this treatment so they could close the north side of the square.

It functioned like a big roundabout, with the A4 westbound going from SE to SW corners, and the A4 eastbound going from NW to NE corners. Now the junction is mostly a small roundabout on the south side. The A4 westbound still goes SE to SW, but the A4 eastbound goes NW to SE.

Converting one-ways to two-ways is generally done as a traffic calming measure. One lane each way forces traffic to slow down compared to two lanes one way. It also reduces the overall capacity of the street, hence the impetus to make one-way pairs in the first place.

Depends - certainly in a nearby town they built a bypass of the town centre for northbound traffic, with southbound still running through it (convert to two one-way streets and increase capacity), but then re-painted the southern half of the bypass to 4 lanes (just about) and made it all two way to speed southbound traffic up. The original route is mostly pedestrianised now.

And my home town plans on converting the main shopping streets from two-way to one-way in order to calm traffic. That said, it's been kicking around for at least 10 years, and I've never seen any serious thing - only some aspiration stuff, and an amateur artists impression and diagram.

Plus there's always the A8 on the Isle of Man.

[mrsman]

N Street in Sacramento between 21st and 28th Streets was converted back to two-way (from one-way eastbound) about 3 years ago; however, the segment from 3rd Street to 21st remains one-way.  (L Street between Alhambra Boulevard and 3rd continues to be one-way westbound)

There were several other conversions a few years earlier.  The reason was also for traffic calming.

S and T were a one-way couplet through most of Downtown.  Now, both are two-way.

21st and Freeport were one-way streets from 4th Ave to the W/X Freeway.

E and F were also one-way couplet through most of Downtown.  F was the connector for CA-160 from 12th to 15th.

G and H were one-way couplets from Alhambra to the River.  Now it seems that the one-way is only west of 16th.  There was a cut through in McKinley Park so that westbound traffic on H would not be forced to make a right on Alhambra and then a left at G.  When they first implemented the traffic calming they put in place all sorts of diverters all through Midtown Sacramento.  It made driving through on any street other than J,L,N,P, or Q extermely challenging.  If you were driving on H eastbound from downtown, all traffic had to make a left on 16th.  This was good for me, because it provided great capacity for those making the left turn towards CA-160, but for anyone trying to reach CA-99, they had to sit on J Street traffic.

I was one-way westbound from 29th.

In the long-ago old days (before I lived there in the 90's), I;ve seen old maps that had H and J as a one-way couplet between Alhambra and the Fair Oaks Bridge over the American River.  Westbound traffic would take H and then transition to G in McKinley Park.  H was one-way eastbound, west of Alhambra.

[mrsman]

Hill Street in Downtown LA was once one-way southbound from Temple to Washington.

Downtown Santa Monica used to have a few one-way streets as well.  I don't remember all of them, but I know that Broadway was one-way eastbound from Ocean to Lincoln and 5th was one-way northbound from the freeway to Wilshire.  These were changed a number of years ago.

[djlynch]

At some time in the late 00s or early 10s (I forget the exact timing) Austin converted Cesar Chavez and 2nd from one-way to two-way. Making Cesar Chavez one way never really made much sense anyway, because you have go go north all the way to 38th/38½th to find a through street that runs all the way from east of I-35 to west of Lamar without having to zig-zag via a north-south street.

There are long-term plans to make all but a couple pairs of downtown streets two-way (I think the exceptions are Guadalupe/Lavaca and 5th/6th, plus maybe San Jacinto/Trinity, but I'm not sure about that.) But for the most part, there isn't anything more than a few empty mast arms to indicate that this is going to happen.

[MillTheRoadgeek]

With an overpass project on VA 28 (completed last year), a local street named Cockrell Road was converted to a two-way road (it was originally one way southbound) through a slight widening.

(sorry if it doesn't show up, again, like the other pic, I am terrible with images. Just bear with me)
I know it's a little old (from when construction was still going on). Gee, they really need to update aerials around here, especially in MD...

[yankee.peddler]

Recently, Winchester, VA, converted two one-way thoroughfares into two-way streets:  Cameron Street used to carry US 11 north through downtown while Braddock Street used to carry US 11 south.  Now, Cameron carries both directions of US 11 and Braddock is without a designation, except for a short stretch that carries US 50.  There might be a few other side streets that were converted as well.  Clearly, the project was a traffic-calming measure and carried out in recognition of the long-standing fact that US 11 doesn't carry long-distance through town anymore.

[thenetwork]

SR-51 (Old US-223) used to come into downtown Toledo from the northwest via Washington Street, and outbound on Monroe Street via one-way streets between Collingwood and Summit Avenues.  Sometime, around 2000, SR-51 was "decommissioned" off of Washington and now rides the full length of Monroe Street from US-23 to Summit Street as both Washington and Monroe are now two-way roads. 

A couple of other minor streets in the downtown area were also made into two-ways in shorter stretches over the years as well.

[jemacedo9]

in Downtown Rochester NY, Broad St between Chestnut St and the roundabout at Broadway was converted from one-way to two-way within the last two year.  The next block, from S Clinton Ave to Chestnut St, is in the process of being converted now.  There is a larger plan to convert all one-way streets downtown to two way.

[mrsman]

This was the mindset several decades ago when it was first implemented.  But more recently, it's generally been considered that converting one-ways back to two-way is better for overall traffic flow as it enables spreading traffic around.  As with all other things, it depends on the specific situation in a given area.

Converting one-ways to two-ways is generally done as a traffic calming measure. One lane each way forces traffic to slow down compared to two lanes one way. It also reduces the overall capacity of the street, hence the impetus to make one-way pairs in the first place.

The biggest downside to two-way streets in urban areas is left turns. Usually there is no room for a left turn lane, and even if there is, those left turns cause delay whether you phase them into the signal or not. But if the street you're on is one way, you can make left and right turns with equal ease.

Also of note: NYCDOT determined that left turning vehicles cause 3 times as many severe accidents involving pedestrians as right turning vehicles. (see page 27 here) Presumably the need to be aggressive when making a left turn off of a two-way street contributes to this.

Duke 87 lists some very fundamental differences between one-way and two-way configurations.  From reading Streetsblog and similar sites, many "transport activists" favor two-way streets because they do lead to slower traffic.  But that doesn't always mean that it's safer.  If you had two parallel 4 lane streets, you can either have 2 four lane one-ways, or 2 streets with 2 lanes in each direction.  With 2-way streets, you have slower traffic, but you also have the potential for traffic being blocked by left turners.  You have more conflicts for people crossing the street having to watch out for left turners, who generally aren't focused on pedestrians much when looking for a gap to make their left turns.  It is also much harder to program signal progression with two way streets.  Two-way streets do provide businesses with the potential of getting two directions worth of customers.  Two-way streets lead to more congestion.

Some of our traffic engineers on this forum may be able to tell us exactly how much higher throughput you can get from a pair of one-ways over a two-ways.  But it seems to me if one lane on each one-way were converted to a protected bike lane or a bus lane, so that now you have a pair of 3 lane one-ways with signal progression, the throughput would be nearly equivalent to 2 two-way 4 lane streets.

So if the Streetsblog crowd wants more bike lanes and bus lanes, they should advocate for more two-way to one-way conversions.

[jakeroot]

Mercer Street in Seattle used to be one-way eastbound towards I-5. Traffic from I-5 was routed hard-right then hard-left onto present-day Valley Street.

Starting a few years ago, Seattle DOT began converting Mercer to two-way traffic. Since construction began, Mercer is now completely two-way. There's still plenty of construction to do but functionally it's almost there.

[froggie]

With 2-way streets, you have slower traffic, but you also have the potential for traffic being blocked by left turners.  You have more conflicts for people crossing the street having to watch out for left turners, who generally aren't focused on pedestrians much when looking for a gap to make their left turns.

Flip side of this is that drivers tend to speed more on one-way streets, which is a lot more dangerous than the potential left-turner issue.  So the safety issue actually goes in favor of two-way streets.

Businesses, in my experience, also tend to prefer two-way streets.