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converting to one way improves high volume flow on existing streets where there isn't space to add dedicated turn lanes. It also reduces the chance of accidents such as head on or from opposing traffic hitting turning vehicles.
Some delivery services have adopted 'No Left turn' policies in urban areas preferring their drivers to make 3 right turns instead because it is safer and overall faster than waiting to cross traffic.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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In downtown Redmond, WA they recently took two one-way streets and made them 2-way, the opposite. For us it seemed to be a big improvement. It seems most appropriate in big cities like Seattle where there are dedicated bus and bicycle lanes and steady flow of traffic until late evening.
I thought this thread was going to be about chili.
Oh, streets? Well ... One-way streets are a pain when you're trying to go around the block, and when you're trying to parallel park on the left side of the street. I still haven't got the hang of that. Otherwise, I prefer them when the streets are narrow. Fewer surprises.
This is why several of the multilane one ways that we had here have been converted to two-ways.
We have an alarmingly high number of car-pedestrian incidents on our multilane one ways and most of them are due to excess speed or people running red lights.
I have a multilane one way that I have to travel here once in a while and absolutely hate it; the people drive like they are on meth or something.
This is why several of the multilane one ways that we had here have been converted to two-ways.
We have an alarmingly high number of car-pedestrian incidents on our multilane one ways and most of them are due to excess speed or people running red lights.
I have a multilane one way that I have to travel here once in a while and absolutely hate it; the people drive like they are on meth or something.
There's a one way couplet I'm familiar with that is like that in Poughkeepsie NY. Sure, let's kill all the urbanity with a freeway stroad. The 60s traffic engineers were on meth for sure
I tend to think that one-way streets are more pedestrian friendly. As a pedestrian, you only have to worry about traffic coming from a single direction. A one-way street is often narrower than a two-way street, so it takes less time to cross it and it feels less like a barrier.
For traffic engineering, narrow one-way streets are better than wide two-way streets. Here's why. If you have two narrow streets intersecting (granted, this also applies to narrow two-way streets), the amount of green-light time doesn't have to be too long to enable pedestrian crossings as well as accommodate traffic volumes. But if you have a two-way street, the green phase may need to be longer to allow for protected left turns, which means that the cross street is stuck with a longer red phase. And if you have a wide two-way street, it will need to have a much longer green phase to accommodate the traffic volume. Yet, ironically, the smaller cross street will need to have a longer green phase than traffic volumes would warrant, simply to allow pedestrians enough time to cross the wider street.
There's a one way couplet I'm familiar with that is like that in Poughkeepsie NY. Sure, let's kill all the urbanity with a freeway stroad. The 60s traffic engineers were on meth for sure
That was the craze for a while. The main advantage is it made synchronizing signals easier. It may have discouraged speeding since if you drove too fast you'd get there before the green. But businesses complained everyone was driving by and not stopping at their establishment. And many other objections, the trend was over. Back to the trash heap of urban planning trends, like Urban Renewal, the Superblock, Pedestrian malls and Edge Cities.
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