\n<\/p>\n
Excessive speeding<\/a> was so common on parallel one-way streets passing a massive electronics plant that Indianapolis residents used to refer to the pair as a \u201cracetrack\u201d akin to the city’s famous Motor Speedway a few miles west.<\/p>\n Originally two-way thoroughfares, Michigan and New York streets switched to opposite one-way routes in the 1970s to help thousands of RCA workers swiftly travel to and from their shifts building televisions or pressing vinyl records. But after the RCA plant closed in 1995, the suddenly barren roads grew even more enticing for lead-footed drivers<\/a> \u2014 until last year, when city officials finally converted them back to two-way streets.<\/p>\n \u201cThe opening and conversion of those streets has just been transformative for how people think about that corridor,\u201d said James Taylor, who runs a nearby community center.<\/p>\n Embracing the oft-repeated slogan that \u201cpaint is cheap,\u201d transportation planners across the U.S. \u2014 particularly in midsize cities \u2014 have been turning their unidirectional streets back to multidirectional ones. They view the step as one of the easiest ways to improve safety<\/a> and make downtowns more alluring<\/a> to shoppers, restaurant patrons and would-be residents.<\/p>\n Dave Amos, an assistant professor of city and regional planning at California Polytechnic State University, said almost no major streets in the U.S. originated as one-way routes. Two-way streets were the standard, before mass migration to the suburbs prioritized faster commutes over downtown walkability<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cOne-way streets are designed for moving cars quickly and efficiently,\u201d Amos said. \u201cSo when you have that as your goal, pedestrians<\/a> and cyclists almost by design are secondary, which makes them more vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n But the propensity to speed isn\u2019t the only reason one-way streets are viewed as less safe.<\/p>\n Wade Walker, an engineer with Kittelson & Associates who has worked on street conversion projects in Lakeland, Florida; Lynchburg, Virginia; and Chattanooga, Tennessee, said there is a misperception that one-way streets are safer because people on foot only have to look one direction to see the incoming traffic. The confusion arises when one-way streets combine with two-way streets to form a city grid<\/a>, he said.<\/p>\n Pedestrians crossing a signalized intersection<\/a> of two-way streets can expect to encounter vehicles in a certain sequence: those turning left on green, traveling straight, and turning right on red<\/a>. But when one-way streets are included, there are 16 potential sequences depending on the type and direction of the roads that intersect, Walker said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not the number of conflicts, it\u2019s the way those conflicts occur,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Louisville, Kentucky, about two hours south of Indianapolis, has been restoring one-way streets to their original two-way footprints. The state is leading an ongoing project to reconvert a stretch along Main Street that passes such landmarks as the Louisville Slugger<\/a> Museum, the KFC Yum! Center arena, and a minor-league baseball stadium.<\/p>\n One of the city’s biggest redesigns is happening this year in the predominantly Black western part of the city, where many roads changed to one-way routes in the 1970s to feed a new interstate bridge over the Ohio River. However, it decimated neighborhoods and cut off the once-thriving community from downtown.<\/p>\n \u201cAll those mom-and-pop shops and local businesses over time kind of faded because that connectivity got taken away,\u201d said Michael King, the city’s assistant director of transportation planning. \u201cIt just feels more like, \u2018This is a road to get me through here pretty quickly.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Within three years after some of Chattanooga’s two-way streets were transformed into unidirectional ones, business vacancies skyrocketed and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga became \u201clandlocked\u201d to prevent students from having to cross a dangerous road, Walker said.<\/p>\n In 2022, almost two decades after the road was redesigned, he returned to find the college campus had expanded across it and business construction had surged.<\/p>\n When Lynchburg, Virginia launched a long-discussed plan to change its downtown Main Street back to two ways, Rodney Taylor voiced concerns that it would doom his restaurant by blocking delivery vehicles. After the city completed the section in 2021, he acknowledged the fears were unfounded.<\/p>\n \u201cAn important thing to do is to admit when you\u2019re wrong,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I was just flat-out wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n Many residents also changed their tune in Austin, Texas, when the city began reconverting some of the one-way streets in its urban core, said Adam Greenfield, executive director with Safe Streets Austin.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just worked,\u201d said Greenfield, who is now lobbying the city to do away with all its one-way streets. \u201cThat\u2019s what you\u2019ll find with these conversions \u2014 they\u2019ll be done and then instantly people will be like, \u2018Why didn\u2019t we do this 20 years ago?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n