They say a picture paints a thousand words, so here’s what a five-lane road looks like with school children crossing in the middle with the help of a crossing guard. What do you think? Is that what you want Northmoor Road to look like? Would you want your children crossing the street in this picture?

Some would say that it’s no big deal — just put up more traffic lights or speed humps to control the speed of traffic. But as the “Safe Routes to School” website explains (emphasis mine):

When slowing or ‘calming’ traffic, the right design invites the right driver response. The guiding principle of traffic calming is to influence motorist speeds and behavior through good design whenever possible, rather than by traffic control measures such as traffic signals and STOP signs.

Hat tip: Beth Akeson

Jennifer Davis reports in the Journal Star today that plans are moving forward to “widen and improve” Northmoor Road:

The proposal would be to make Northmoor Road three lanes from Allen Road to Rosemead Drive, which is basically across from the Exposition Gardens entrance. Northmoor would then become five lanes from there until Sheridan Road, and then go back to three lanes from Sheridan to Knoxville Avenue.

I agree that Northmoor needs to be improved — meaning they need better drainage, curbs, sidewalks, etc. But what is the justification for widening it?

There are two nearby east-west routes that have higher traffic capacity — Pioneer Parkway to the north and Glen Avenue to the south. Those east-west streets have a high volume of commercial businesses, which justifies the higher-capacity, five-lane roadways.

Northmoor, on the other hand, provides more than adequate access to the schools (Northmoor-Edison, Richwoods High) and residential areas that lie along its path. The justification for widening Northmoor is clearly not to provide better access to anything along that corridor, but to provide an easier throughway for those wanting to travel from the east side of town to the west side.

In other words, they want to make it a cut-through — a shortcut through a primarily residential area with two schools and lots of little kids. That’s not a good enough reason. To encourage more people to use Northmoor as a cut-through by accommodating faster traffic flow is unwarranted. They wouldn’t let motorists use Prospect Road between Knoxville and Lake that way, so why should they let motorists use Northmoor that way?

The road is already a through street and has a 30 mph speed limit. If anyone wants to use it instead of the larger, faster east-west routes, they have that choice. The city should improve the street, but keep it at its present width for the safety of the residents and school children.

The Journal Star reported on the last public meeting about changing Adams and Jefferson streets downtown from one-way to two-way. It’s clear that Public Works Director Steve Van Winkle doesn’t want to change them (why, I don’t know). He had an engineer from IDOT figure out the cost of switching, and supposedly it’s over $10 million.

I’d like to see the itemized bill for that one. Methinks the price is a bit inflated, perhaps because of the part of this quote I’ve emphasized:

Traffic officials also talked about the possibility of having one-way streets Downtown but having traffic going two-way just outside of Downtown. IDOT estimated the cost, which included changing traffic signals, changing signs and buying land, at more than $10 million.

“Buying land”? And just why would we need to buy land when Peoria already owns a right-of-way that handled two-way traffic in the first place?

But that’s not all — if their prices don’t scare you, perhaps their accident statistics will:

According to statistics from the Illinois Department of Transportation, the one-mile stretch of Adams Street that is two way south of U.S. Route 150 has a higher accident rate than the one-way sections of Adams and Jefferson Avenue that are just south of it.

The two-way stretch of road had 8.5 crashes per million vehicle miles driven, compared to 5 and 5.2 crashes per million vehicle miles on the one-way streets.

“There’s more crashes on the two-way section,” said Eric Therkildsen, a program development engineer with IDOT.

Ah, statistics. How do you suppose they were able to prove causality based on this correlation? How were they able to isolate the traffic-direction variable and determine this was the one and only reason crashes were up on one-way streets? Do you think things like visibility; the number of intersections, business entrances, employees; or the amount of traffic volume varied at all between these two stretches? And what was the time period for these data? The two-way section includes the intersection of routes 150 and 24 — are there a disproportionate number of accidents at that major intersection that could skew the results?

When the Public Works director is throwing everything but the kitchen sink at an idea to make it go away, it’s probably not going to happen. You can’t fight city hall, and I doubt there is anyone obsessed enough with converting streets to two-way that will fund his or her own feasibility study. So, it will likely die until such time as we get a Public Works director who is more open-minded.

It’s been a while since the last public meeting, but the city is still interested in hearing your thoughts on reverting downtown streets back to two-way traffic. Another public meeting is scheduled for this Wednesday, September 20, at 6:30 p.m. in the Gateway Building on the riverfront.

I’ve been an advocate of this plan for some time, but especially since the reconfiguration of I-74. I contend one of the benefits would be easier access to downtown from the new interstate ramps and vice versa if the streets were converted to two-way. If you’re leaving, say, O’Brien Field by going north on Adams and you want to go east on I-74, you currently have to drive over 74, turn left on Spalding, left on Jefferson, left on Fayette, and finally left onto the entrance ramp. If Jefferson were two-way, you could avoid the run-around-the-block.

Overall, there’s simply not enough traffic volume downtown to warrant one-way streets, as the Heart of Peoria Plan and other feasibility studies have observed.

In 1912, Lester Wire invented the first American traffic signal in Salt Lake City, Utah, and driving hasn’t been the same since. In the 1950s, they even invented the interstate highway system just to get away from the cursed devices.

Traffic signals are a large part of why I hate driving. And now that Peoria has them posted just about every 100 feet all over the city, I’m starting to think I could travel faster by bicycle.

Stop. Wait. Wait. Arrow. Wait. Go. Stop. Repeat at every intersection.

Now I know why Chevy came out with the “Sprint” back in the ’80s. No vehicle has been more aptly named for city driving, where sprinting is all you can accomplish between stop lights that are apparently timed to keep traffic travelling an average of 20 mph.

The worst lights of all are the ones that change for no reason. For instance, the light at Knoxville and McDonalds, south of McClure. There may not be anyone there at the light either direction in the middle of the night, but it will change just for the heck of it as a lone car approaches from the north. And there you sit, idling, burning precious fossil fuel while trying to convince yourself it would be wrong to run it, even though there’s no one around to see you.

Stop lights add frustration to an experience that is already maddening because you have to (a) suffer interminable road construction and (b) share the road with other drivers.  Ever seen car commercials from the ’50s, where having a fine automobile on the open road meant freedom, relaxation, and exploration?  Ha!  Maybe when there was only one car per family and all the highways were new that was possible.  Today, it’s not uncommon for a family to have more vehicles than licensed drivers, and of course all the nation’s highways are in a state of perpetual disrepair.  The 1950s’ dream has become the 2000s’ nightmare.

Driving has lost its allure for me.  I would be happy riding the bus to work every day, if I didn’t need my car to run job-related errands all week, and if it didn’t take three times as long as driving.   Occasionally, when my car has been in the shop, I’ve taken the bus to and from work, and despite the extra time it took, I found it very relaxing.  I could read the paper, plan out my day, and not once be concerned about traffic lights or other drivers.

Hmmm…  Read the paper, plan the day, be unconcerned about lights or other drivers — that pretty much sums up what the driver in front of me was doing on my way to work today….

Photo credit: UDOT