Twin Cities Streets for People

The coming conversion of Hennepin Avenue and 1st Avenues from one-way to a two-way streets  has sparked some conversation latelty. It might seem like a complicated issue: why is the city doing this project? Here are some resources about the pros and cons of each kind of street, and why the coming conversion might be a good idea for Minneapolis street life...
 

Link #1) An older USA Today article on the two-way street conversaion movement all throughout the US. 

Here is the meat of the article:

"The driving force behind it is economic development," says city engineer David Schnelle, who expects to reprogram signals, change pavement markings and change signs by November 2007.

He says motorists tend to drive faster on one-way streets and go past their destinations, then lose time and patience backtracking.

[...]

"There's a lot of emphasis now on taming the automobile and emphasizing walking and biking. It's all part of creating a place that people want to be," says Marya Morris of the American Planning Association. "The bigger pieces are the major downtown housing booms and having things for people to do after 5."

The boom in one-way streets began with the Cold War in the 1950s, when cities planned quick routes out of town for evacuation in case of nuclear attack, says John Norquist, one of the first vocal advocates of two-way-street conversion. Norquist was mayor of Milwaukee from 1988 to 2003 and now runs the Congress for the New Urbanism, which promotes the revitalization of cities.

The growth of the suburbs contributed, too, as cities smoothed the route home from work, says Neal Hawkins, associate director for traffic operations at the Iowa State University Center for Transportation Research and Education. Now, though, there are more jobs in the suburbs, more entertainment downtown, and drivers go in all directions.

Link #2) An excellent roundup of the some of the accessible research on one-way v. two-way streets, put together by a blogger and researcher in Richmond, VA:

Here's his conclusion:

I’ve spent the afternoon researching the claims each side is making and trying to determine if there is a clear case to be made for either side. Most arguments on both sides of the local debate center on making downtown a safer and more inviting environment for non-motorists, a goal almost universally shared.

My view: there is no obvious choice here.

The smoking gun for my ambivalence is the Federal Highway Administration’s Pedestrian Safety Report on “One-Way/Two-Way Street Conversions,” which concludes that compelling reasons exist for both types of streets from a pedestrian safety perspective.

Reasons for converting to 2-way streets:

Slower traffic speeds.
Decrease “Vehicle Miles Traveled” by eliminating indirect routes (driving around the block to get to your destination).
Increased access to businesses.
Possibly: safer for pedestrians.
Reasons for maintaining 1-way streets:

Conversion is very costly.
1- way streets allow for more cars, thereby decreasing congestion.
Easier than 2-way streets to time stoplights (timed lights improve traffic flow and decrease idling (& therefore pollution)).
Fewer turn prohibitions.
More on-street parking.
Possibly: safer for pedestrians.

Unfortunately, most of the information I found about the pros and cons of converting streets was written by highly partisan organizations which were promoting ideological arguments for or against automobile-oriented development. These studies were less academic in nature and more akin to propaganda. I searched academic databases, government sites, and google. At any rate, here’s a rundown of studies I found helpful.
 

Link #3) A brief discussion on Traffic writer Tom Vanderbilt''s blog on the merits of each kind of street.

Here's what he says:

 I could have written an entire chapter in Traffic about the one-way/two-way debates (like LCD and plasma, they each have their particular attributes), but of more immediate concern to me here is the idea that every conversion I’ve heard of recently is from one-way to two-way. I wonder if the tide of planning orthodoxy has fully shifted, or are there any big two-way to one-way conversions going on as I write?

My summary) Bascially, one-way streets are better at high and rapid traffic flow. They are good at getting cars quickly through a city.

Two-way streets force cars to travel slower, and are bit easier for most drivers to navigate. Because cars travel more slowly, they are safer for cyclists and pedestrians.

The question is: Are Hennepin and 1st Avenues spaces more suited for cars or people?