Changing city streets

During the recent mayoral campaign candidate Paul Goldman floated an idea about making Cary St. in the Carytown neighborhood off limits to cars, maybe even all vehicles on wheels. Since then I’ve read that some boosters for Downtown want to turn some one-way streets into two-way streets. As for what the traffic engineers think about theses […]

December 8, 2008; 6:27 PM • by FTRea

During the recent mayoral campaign candidate Paul Goldman floated an idea about making Cary St. in the Carytown neighborhood off limits to cars, maybe even all vehicles on wheels. Since then I’ve read that some boosters for Downtown want to turn some one-way streets into two-way streets.

As for what the traffic engineers think about theses notions, I can’t say. But here’s what comes to mind when I read bloggers and other experts acting as if they do know what would happen if The City did put such experiments in play.

In 1981 a small but busy group of Fan District real estate speculators and merchants in the VCU area got what they were sure was a bright idea. They wanted to change a portion of W. Grace Street — Belvidere to the Blvd. — from being a one-way street heading west to two-way.

They held meetings and congratulated one another on the perfection of their plan. They shrugged off anyone’s questioning of it.

At the time I managed the Biograph Theatre at 814 W. Grace, so I attended some of those meetings. The majority of the merchants became convinced it was a good idea. I was not so sure. It wasn’t that I knew any more about it than anyone else, I simply didn’t believe those for the change really knew what they were talking about.

A while after the change was made, maybe a year, the man among the merchants group who led the push told me the change had been a big mistake. It had caused all sorts of problems he hadn’t anticipated. He said it had hurt his business.

So, I did a little informal survey of other merchants in the neighborhood. As I remember it, few, if any of them, supported the change. Maybe people feel differently about it now, but 25 years ago, if they could have, most of the merchants in the 800 and 900 blocks of W. Grace would have undone the one-way to two-way change. They would have told The City to put it back like it was.

My point is that just because somebody starts talking about changing the traditional traffic patterns of streets, at a civic association or merchant meeting, doesn’t necessarily mean they know what all the consequences will be if they get their way. Truth be told, sometimes they have no idea at all of what they are talking about.

December 8, 2008 6:27 PM 0