8A The Gazette ● Sunday, May 26, 2019

Jim Slosiarek photos/The Gazette

LEFT: Work begins last week on converting Third Avenue SE near Greene Square from one-way to two-way traffic. It marks the final downtown street to undergo the conversions that began in 2015.
RIGHT: Workers with Eastern Iowa Excavating & Concrete of Cascade on Wednesday remove concrete and asphalt near the curb at the corner of Fifth Street SE and Third Avenue SE.

Streets/2-way streets have benefits

;; FROM PAGE 1A “For the entire 32nd St.
“Every inch of pave- metro Cedar
ment that we had was
used to move traffic,”
Myers said.
Rapids area to
survive health-
Cedar Rapids 29th St.
To accommodate so
many vehicles, the city
shifted portions of Sec-
fully ... we have two-way street CEDAR
ond, Third, Fourth and to keep improv-
conversions NE RAPIDS
Oakland Rd.
Center Point Rd.

Fifth avenues to handle

one-way travel.
“By the early ’60s, all
four of those were con-
verted to one-way streets
and the whole idea was
ing the city core.
Several one-way streets in Cedar Rapids have been
That’s key to the converted back to two-way traffic in recent years. K Ave.
identity of the Ell Here is a look at those completed, those still
iplanned
sB for conversion and the remaining existing
J Ave.
11th St.

lvd
to get that traffic mov- whole commu- one-way. streets in the city.
ing through downtown
nity, so the two-
10th St.

Cedar Rapids,” Stoffer KEY H Ave. ve.

19

ways are a way

Stt.

Hunter said. EA
th
St.

In the early 1980s,

Interstate 380 was com- to do that.” Road to be converted to two-way traffic in 2019
17
th

pleted and much of the

16

St.

traffic cluttering down- Mark Stoffer Hunter, Q Ave.

th

Road to be converted from 2020 to 2022

St.
15

town relocated to the local historian

th
11th St.

new interstate.
St.
6th St.

Additional one-way Road already converted within last few years

streets were constructed do that,” Stoffer Hunter e. Blake Blvd.
e. Av
at that time to connect said. Road will remain a one-way street t Av 2nd
and funnel traffic to the With Speck’s assis- 1s
Co

e. Park Ave.
eR

16th St.

interstate. tance — the city has paid Av

3rd
d.

A pair of one-way him more than $50,000

Ellis Blvd.

connectors were built in

9th St.

for his services — the Ce- Bever Ave.

ve.
1st St.

each quadrant: Center dar Rapids City Council AA 4th Ave.

Point and Oakland roads passed a complete-streets
10
th

in the northeast, E and design manual. In 2015, J Ave.

NW
St.

F avenues in the north- work began on the first

15th St.

18th St.

380
19th St.
17th St.

west, 15th and 16th av- two-way conversions.

e.
enues in the southwest, Since 2015, conver- Av
3rd St.

and Seventh and Eighth sions have taken place 5th

streets in the southeast. on Second, Third, Fourth F Ave.
8th

But despite a sig- and Fifth avenues and E Ave.

7th

St.

nificant drop in traffic, Oakland Road. Center

St.

Mount Vernon Rd.

downtown streets re- Point Road, near McLoud
5th

mained one-way routes Run, is planned to be-

SE
3rd

St.

for decades. come a two-way street in B Ave.

2n

ve.
St.
dS

the coming years. hA

1s

GOING BACK t
t.
tS

Myers said some one- 10

t.

Myers said I-380 car- way streets outside the

1st

. 4
Ave
3rd

ries as many as 70,000 downtown core, such as

6th

8th
St.
St.

daily vehicles, leaving E and F avenues NW and 5th Ave.

St.

a few thousand vehicles Third and L streets SW,

per day on downtown will remain one-ways for
.

8th Ave.
Ave

streets such as Second or the time being.

SW
LS

th

Cedar River
12

Third avenues. Pratt said one frus-

t.

ve.

The need for high- tration among drivers

th A

capacity one-way funnels is that the conversions

4th St.

CS
16
9th St.

t. Mount
d.

downtown has dimin- have taken place piece-

R

AS
rd

ished since the interstate meal, during the course t. Trashmore

kfo

opened. of several years. She

c
Ro

What’s more, one-way said conversions became 15th Ave.

streets tend to result in
increased traffic speeds,
creating barriers for pe-
destrians, Myers said.
Plans to address the
city’s one-way streets
often were discussed, but
it wasn’t until a 2012 con-
versation between city
officials and national ur-
ban planning consultant
and author Jeff Speck
that the tipping point
was reached.
Speck, author of
“Walkable City: How
Downtown Can Save
America, One Step at a
Time,” long has advocat-
ed for two-way streets.
He also recommends
replacing traffic signals
with stop signs and cre-
ating streets that accom-
modate pedestrians and
bicyclists.
“For the entire metro
Cedar Rapids area to
spread out as the city
tried to accommodate
large-scale downtown
projects such as the
CRST Center.
“The bad news is we
can’t do everything in
as orderly a fashion as
we would have hoped,
but the reason we had to
speed up those segments
was because of invest-
ment in our downtown,”
Pratt said.
Officials with the
Cedar Rapids Police De-
partment have said that,
while it takes time for
drivers to adjust to new
traffic patterns, vehicles
have slowed down on the
streets that have been
converted.
In Iowa City, a portion
of Governor Street and
a few blocks of Wash-
ington Street downtown
were converted several
Source: City of Cedar Rapids
Gazette map
16th Ave.
— Jefferson and Market
— have been considered
for conversion, but no se-
rious conversations have
taken place.
Any official action
would come with public
meetings and council
approval, he added.
“I think it’s safe to say
Jefferson and Market are
being contemplated,” he
said.
As for Cedar Rapids,
Stoffer Hunter said he’s
excited for drivers to be
able to once again see the
streets — and historic
buildings downtown —
from both angles.
“What I like about
converting back to two-
way is that all the local
© 2019 The Gazette

survive healthfully ...
we have to keep improv-
ing the city core. That’s
key to the identity of the
whole community, so the
two-ways are a way to
years ago from one-way
to two-way traffic.
Kent Ralston, Iowa
City transportation plan-
ner, said the city’s two
main one-way streets
architecture, all the
buildings and houses, are
all designed to be looked
at from both directions.” Gazette file photo
l Comments: (319) 398-8309; Heavy traffic flows Dec. 1, 1979, along Third Avenue SE near Fifth Street SE in Cedar Rapids. Greene
mitchell.schmidt@thegazette.com Square — then called Greene Square Park — is seen in the background.