Downtown success is a two-way street
What went wrong with American downtowns during the last half of the 20th century?
A lot, actually. But one big thing was that they were redesigned to work better for cars than for people. It’s no wonder people abandoned them.
Lexington escaped the worst of it. Unlike many cities, Lexington didn’t have an expressway routed through the middle of it. Interstate highways made America’s small towns and rural areas more accessible, but they devastated many cities — cutting up neighborhoods and making downtowns less walkable, welcoming and safe.
Downtown Lexington’s legacy from 20th century traffic engineering efficiency is its one-way street pairs — primarily the east-west corridors of Short and Second, High and Maxwell, Main and Vine and the north-south corridor of Limestone and Upper.
It was all done in the early 1970s with the best of intentions: Make it easier for shoppers to get to and from downtown so the stores won’t move to the suburbs.
It didn’t work. Worse yet, those one-way streets have hampered public and private efforts to reinvent and revitalize downtown Lexington ever since.
Here’s the problem: Cars go faster on one-way streets, especially when lanes are wide. That makes traffic more dangerous, especially for pedestrians, and more noisy. One-way streets hurt business and confuse tourists.
Fortunately, after years of struggle, efforts to revive downtown Lexington are taking hold, thanks to some good planning and more than $300 million in private investment. Mayor Jim Newberry unveiled a new “streetscape” plan Thursday that could make downtown even better.
The plan, developed by Covington-based KKG Studios, would make downtown a more people-friendly place to live, work and play. It would add bicycle lanes and 170 additional street parking spaces during non-peak hours. Wider sidewalks would allow for easier walking and more outdoor dining.
A water feature would be built along Vine Street, following the path of Town Branch Creek, which was buried beneath the street generations ago. A European-style glass pavilion would be built on Cheapside, Lexington’s historic marketplace, as a home for the Lexington Farmers Market and community events.
It’s a terrific plan that could help downtown achieve its potential for contributing to Lexington’s economy and quality of life. It also assumes the conversion of most, if not all, of the one-way streets back to two-way traffic. That follows the recommendation of Lexington’s 2006 downtown master plan.
Plans call for Short and Second streets to return to two-way traffic within 12 months, said Harold Tate, president of the Downtown Development Authority. Limestone and Upper Streets would be made two-way within two or three years. But Tate said further studies are needed before setting a timetable for returning two-way traffic to High, Maxwell, Main and Vine streets.
At Thursday’s news conference, Newberry was pessimistic about returning two-way traffic to downtown’s biggest drag strips — Main and Vine streets. “It’s very complicated,” he said, citing likely pushback from state traffic engineers and others. Newberry said he didn’t expect to see it happen “in my lifetime.”
That makes no sense.
After all, Main Street is two-way in each direction until it reaches downtown. That means traffic speeds up just when it should be slowing down.
“We’ve had a failed 40-year experiment with one-way streets downtown,” said Phil Holoubek, a downtown developer whose projects include Main & Rose and the Nunn Building Lofts.
Once other one-way streets are converted and the Newtown Pike extension is completed in 2014 to route through-traffic around downtown, there’s no reason not to return Main and Vine to two-way, he said.
Van Meter Pettit, a downtown resident who is developing the Town Branch Trail, agrees. “Otherwise, we’re saying that commuter traffic is a higher priority than urban redevelopment, when our master planning is telling us just the opposite,” he said.
Successful cities across America are converting their one-way streets back to two-way and looking for other ways to make their downtowns work better for people than cars. In perhaps the boldest move yet, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced plans Friday to convert Times Square into a pedestrian mall by May.
Lexington’s city officials and their consultants have invested a lot of time, effort and money in solid plans for revitalizing downtown. They shouldn’t let nay-saying by state traffic engineers or others jeopardize those efforts.
If downtown Lexington is to achieve its potential, it must become a place people want to drive to — not drive through.
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February 28th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
I agree, Tom. I think I’m safe in saying that those of us who favor two-waying Main and Vine would appreciate a more thorough explanation of the Mayor’s skepticism. There is plenty of evidence that retail, groceries in particular, are staying away from downtown specifically because of the one-way situation.
February 28th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Tom, you seem to imply that the one-way couplets of High/Maxwell, Limestone/Upper and Short /Second were done in the 70’s. I can recall, as a small child attending the Maxwell School in the 50’s, that Maxwell and High were already one-way streets and that my fathers store on S. Upper, now the current location of Centre Court, was also one-way prior to the closing in 1959. I have little personal recollection of Short or Second, but I am fairly sure that they also predate the 70’s timeline.
I have seen photos of Limestone, depicting autos of the 40’s and 50’s that appear to be two-way streets yet I cannot now confirm that the action to make them one-way occurred around that period.
I also fully support a return to a two-way system of downtown streets and the sooner the better.
March 1st, 2009 at 11:17 am
I could have sworn that Main and Vine went one day back in the late 80s, early 90s - that’s not forty years ago.
March 1st, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Main and Vine, which is the primary issue, went one-way on June 24, 1971, after several years of planning, discussion and debate. (Some Main Street merchants were against it then for the same reasons they are now.)
The Herald-Leader clip files are spotty as to when the other in-town streets went one-way. Streetsweeper may be right that some of them were converted to one-way traffic as far back as the 1950s; he knows Lexington pretty well. (I went to the old Maxwell School for first and second grades in the mid-1960s, but didn’t pay much attention to traffic patterns at the time ….)
The movement to one-way street pairs was mostly a post-World War II phenomenon.
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:24 am
It would seem the city cannot fully commit to correcting approaches that have proven wrtong in so many other cities and states. To being the downtown back to a pedestrian friendly environment you have to slow the traffic and ease the burden to drive to the business from both directions. Traffic calming is also needed so the people walking downtown feel like they have a safe chance to cross the street without being hit by an auto or truck. One of the first things to accomplish would be to bring two way traffic back to town one section at a time. Until then no other options will be as successful since the traffic pattern flows fast to drawn the downtown.
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:52 am
Once again a terrific plan without any solid cost-benefit analysis. You say $300 Million in private investments, does include the Webbs Lexington Ground Zero? The entire problem for Lexington is it lacks a grid system, instead it has a wagon wheel road system. Anything Lexington has done with roads has always been against the suggestions from state planners: New Circle Road limited access only, Man-O-War limited access only with shoulders, Nicholasville Road for reverse traffic you need Six Lanes. We could go on forever with this, but the fact is what will bring people downtown when everthing they need is on the internet or closeby in their local neighborhood strip mall?
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:02 am
great article Tom.
the mayor has some explaining to do regarding his skepticism… “not is my lifetime”… he either doesn’t expect to live very long… or shouldn’t expect to stay in office very long. Lexington needs a healthy downtown to remain viable in the 21st century. 2-way streets are a no-brainer. I guess our mayor has no brain?
regarding Lexington’s “wagon wheel” layout… there is nothing wrong with a radial city layout per se… the problem is a successful radial layout actually looks more like a spider web, with lots of interconnecting roads. like a circular grid. Lexington doesn’t have this, and as a result ALL traffic is forced on the the “spokes” resulting in far too much congestion relative to it’s size. Unfortunately not much can be done about this now… it is the fault of “conventional wisdom” favoring sprawl development over the last 50 years… and yes New Circle is part of that problem. Man-o-war isn’t quite right either… no development along the corridor, but I wouldn’t call it “limited access”.
Fortunately, downtown Lexington does have a limited network of gridded streets, which need to be returned to their original 2-way designs… on this, I think even traffic engineers are beginning to realize the error of their predecessor’s ways.
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:02 am
*in
March 16th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
In a merged urban county where we have pledged for 50 years to preserve two-thirds of the land area as a world heritage monument for our signature equine industry, it should be clear to everyone that our economic future rests on how densely and carefully we develop the core of our city. If we choose to maintain our unique rural character, whatever land remains inside our urban boundary must become perpetually more dense and productive. To quote our recent 2040 survey, we want Lexington to have a “Great City Life in a Productive Rural Paradise.” Outside consultants and local advocates have relayed to us repeatedly that if we want to compete on a national level for jobs and business we must develop a downtown that is as compelling in nature as our rural landscape. Every parcel of every block in our city’s center needs to be viewed as the seed corn for a future harvest.
From the observations made by executives of Toyota, Lexmark, and UK Hospital we now understand that a weak and lackluster downtown is not just an embarrassment, it is a critical deficiency that will relegate us to second- or third-tier status among American cities. If we do not generate an optimal climate for urban culture, growth, and innovation, we will watch our creative businesses and college graduates move away to better job environments. Despite the recent flourish of downtown masterplanning and urban mixed-use development, Lexington has yet to commit faithfully to optimizing our downtown. Significant aspects of our 2006 downtown masterplan have been set aside or watered down.
Though motivated by good intentions and a concern for time and money, critical aspects of our most recent streetscape plan deviate profoundly from our first masterplan in ways that need debate and scrutiny. What is most time-critical at present is the mandate to convert our downtown streets back to two-way traffic. After thousands of hours of public input, the 2006 masterplan was emphatic about downtown street conversions. And yet the latest streetscape plan suggests that we redevelop Vine and Main as one-way streets. The conversion of our once two-way streets into a one-way system in our downtown is a ’60s era experiment that has failed. Our once vibrant downtown is a mere shadow of its former self. Converting our urban byways into a confusing labyrinth of restricted intersections and one-way streets has discouraged pedestrian and commercial life. Many of our best downtown landmarks and commercial property are visually inaccessible because of the one-way traffic flow. Aside from some attractive spots here and there, downtown has acres of asphalt lots and marginally used real estate. A growing chorus of visiting consultants all echo what is now a national consensus: One-way streets are good for moving commuter traffic and very bad for downtown business. Scores of cities across the U.S. have converted one-way streets back to two-way to improve their urban environments.
Since our long-term future depends on a strong and growing urban economy, it would follow that we are busily converting our one-way streets back to their original two-way condition. Sadly this is not the case.
Despite every indication that downtown would benefit from these conversions, it has been several years since ANY conversion large or small has been made. In fact we are poised to invest millions of dollars at a time of scarcity to improve Main and Vine as one-way streets. We as a community have said over and over that we need a “24/7″ downtown, but the decision to renew this failed urban experiment is inspired by a two-hour-a-day drive-through mindset.
It is understandable that our government is concerned that a delay in our daily commute will generate public wrath. But the debate over commute times and two-way conversions has never been put clearly to the public in the context of the well-observed economic merits. This issue has been debated all over the country already and the consensus from scores of communities is consistent: two-way conversions, while temporarily disruptive and controversial, are a net benefit for the economy and the life of the city.
We strongly urge the council and mayor to vote for a clear mandate for two-way conversions with a specific timetable for each pair of streets. Although it will not be quick, cheap, or easy, we eventually need to convert all our major streets back to two-way if we want to optimize conditions for development and commerce downtown. How do we expect to make our city what it needs to be without reversing one of the clear obstacles to its redevelopment?
This issue needs to be clearly resolved for all subsequent planning decisions to be made coherently. If this remains an avoided debate, it will be a source of ambiguity sure to discourage confidence and investment. We will likely make costly mistakes as a city down the road without a clear mandate to guide us. If it is clearly explained, Lexingtonians all want what is best in the long-term rather than what is cheapest or most expedient. We all want a growing economy and a bright future so our children and grandchildren can grow up in the Bluegrass. Our economic future depends on an optimized and reinvigorated urban core. This major issue was recommended in 2006 and now warrants timely resolution and implementation.
Van Meter Pettit, AIA, is president of Town Branch Trail, Inc., a 501-c-3 nonprofit dedicated to advocacy for the creation of a multi-use trail linking downtown Lexington with its equine landscape via the historic Town Branch corridor.