Road Diet

[erfalf]

I know in downtown Tulsa, they are working on converting many streets to two way, which I think is a good step. But I know Boston is still four lanes. Is there that much traffic down Boston? Are people still driving pretty fast? When I drive down 5th (two lanes only) it seems much calmer and I don't feel the need to "hurry it up" as I do on Boston.

Just wondering.

[TheTed]

There definitely is no need for four lanes on Boston. It isn't even that much of a through route for cars. The rightmost northbound lane between fourth and fifth is blocked by delivery trucks a big portion of the business day. It doesn't cause any major traffic backups.

It's been discussed previously on this board quite a bit. There's barely enough room to walk through the sidewalk dining areas at Elote and Mod's. But we have plenty of excess space for cars. That seems to be the way we want our downtown to develop. Cram pedestrians/sidewalk diners in a teeny little area, but make sure there's tons of space for cars.

It's even worse on the railroad overpasses. One sidewalk that's too narrow to walk beside your partner on, next to six lanes of road (four lanes plus width for parking or some such that's not even used). Then they use the narrow sidewalks to place road construction signs.