At the end of a Journal Star article on Friday about the new arbor at Rebecca Place being dedicated and the planned celebration for it, there was a brief mention that neighbors may want that street closed permanently:
In the coming months, [Second District Councilwoman Barbara] Van Auken said the neighborhood association and city officials, will consider if Rebecca Place should be redeveloped into a cul-de-sac dead-ending at Main at the foot of the arbor.
She said while the arbor was under construction – and Rebecca was closed to traffic at Main – many neighbors drove on Laura or Bradley avenues into Rebecca with little problems. The biggest issue, Van Auken said, in reconstructing Rebecca into a cul-de-sac is ensuring public safety vehicles have access.
There’s even a rumor going around that they might want to install a gate, ala The Coves, at Rebecca and Main. Prohibiting or limiting access from Main street into the Uplands neighborhood is also being considered by that neighborhood association.
I like to call ideas like this the “suburbanization” of our urban areas. Streets in older, urban areas are on a grid system of rectilinear through-streets divided into city blocks. Starting in the 1940s and beyond, developers began building curvilinear streets for residences and business parks that terminated in dead-ends/cul-de-sacs, with only one or two access points to the entire neighborhood.
Cutting off urban streets to make them emulate their suburban counterparts is a bad idea. It creates more problems than it supposedly solves.
Inside the neighborhoods
Reducing the number of access points will always put more pressure on the interior streets. Van Auken stated “many neighbors drove on Laura or Bradley avenues into Rebecca with little problems” while Rebecca was closed at Main. I’ll bet they also went north on Cooper to get to Main. So whereas Rebecca currently has direct access to Main, by closing the street, more traffic will be generated onto the interior streets of Laura, Bradley, and Cooper.
Likewise in the Uplands, by limiting access to Main, more traffic will be dumped onto Columbia Terrace and its intersection with University Street. The problem is even greater here, since the Uplands has nearly 300 homes. If you figure most of those homes have two cars, that’s a lot of traffic that used to be filtered through six access points (five intersections with Main) now being largely diverted to one access point (Columbia Terrace and University). It makes Columbia Terrace a street-hierarchy-style collector, adding volume and putting additional pressure on it. This doesn’t make things safer for pedestrians or children on the interior streets.
Incidentally, cutting off access doesn’t do anything about speeding. Many people complain about “cut-through traffic,” when they really are complaining about speeding traffic. I don’t know of anyone that would mind people cutting through the neighborhood at 20 or 25 miles per hour. The trouble is, the people who live in the neighborhood are generating the most traffic, and they are just as prone to speeding as someone looking for a short-cut. So we can cut off access and still not solve the underlying issue: speed.
Outside the neighborhoods
Cutting off streets makes things even worse on Main and University. At a recent traffic forum, neighbors talked about how they wanted the traffic on Main street to slow down, and how Main street should be narrowed and made more pedestrian-friendly. In fact, it was this desire that made many neighbors worry that if Main were slowed too much, it would increase traffic cutting through their neighborhoods — hence, the desire to cut off access in anticipation of improvements to Main street. But the trouble is, cutting off access to the neighborhoods will have the opposite effect on Main and University than what neighbors desire.
Changes at Bradley University are already putting more pressure on Main and University. The city agreed to vacate Maplewood and Glenwood through campus (i.e., between Main street and Bradley avenue), so those points of access are now gone for students. Plus, Bradley is building a large parking deck at Maplewood and Main that will have access only to Main. So all parking for events at the Fieldhouse and the arena that will replace it will have to enter and exit from Main. If Maplewood had remained a through street, additional access could have been had from Bradley Avenue and its connections to Western and University.
By residents not letting people “cut through” their neighborhoods, all the traffic generated by the university will have to stay on Main and University. Plus, the residents themselves will be forcing themselves to use these streets more. If access in the Uplands is restricted, for example, every resident who wants to travel west on Main to get to Western or Farmington road would have to travel on Columbia Terrace to University south to Main street west. This especially puts increased pressure on the University/Main intersection, which is already a nightmare. If access weren’t restricted, those traveling west could enter Main as far west as Parkside drive, which would ease congestion at the Main/University intersection.
The bottom line is this: The university’s and neighborhoods’ actions will cause Main and University to carry a greater volume of traffic, which will result in these arterials becoming wider and faster, which is the exact opposite of what the residents say they want to see. It will further exacerbate neighborhood isolation and make the overall area more pedestrian-hostile, less safe for Bradley students, residents, and children.
CJ- I agree with you. I attended the first Second District Traffic Forum, at the request of several Peoria Traffic Commission commissioners, and I too heard people make comments and suggestions for solutions, which ironically, if carried out would undermine their vision of a pedestrian friendly neighborhood. Many of the comments were based on beliefs perpetuated by “old school” traffic engineers.
I was in Chicago on Wednesday and I saw an advertisement that said “Invest in facts…not feelings.” Even though it was an ad for an investment firm it seems like good advice for many aspects of life. This pedestrian/traffic issue could use an injection of some hard science, but unfortunately because the traditional grid pattern provides so many travel possibilities it has been difficult to quantify. Jeff Speck and Andres Duany explain in their book Suburban Nation how grid patterns work. They give an example of a traditional traffic grid compared to a suburban sprawl model on page 24:
They go on to state that it is easier for transportation engineers to analyze statistically the predetermined path of a single collector road which explains why the suburban model holds more sway with traffic engineers. Also, remember it hasn’t been until recently that transportation engineers have been asked to consider pedestrians and typically they respond by providing just a sidewalk. Sidewalks alone are not enough to create a vital and inviting pedestrian environment. We most likely would get more satisfying outcomes if we framed the issue differently. We need to give the engineers a new problem to solve and to do so we should ask more questions and then have a dialogue.
What outcome do we want to produce? Do we want neighborhoods that are isolated and only accessible by car? What role do we want Main Street to serve? Do we want it to be just a highway as it is today? Or, do we want Main Street to be a place where people feel comfortable parking, walking and shopping?
Main Street, with its five lanes of traffic blowing through at 40-50 miles per hour and narrow impassable sidewalks, has not produced a congenial environment for both autos and pedestrians. It is basically a highway with traffic signals (and flower baskets 🙂 ) giving us the impression it is not a highway-but it is. Additionally, speed limit signs will not be effective when the roads are designed for speed. People will drive their cars as fast as the road design permits, unless of course, the police are present. We can not realistically expect the Peoria Police department to be present at every intersection throughout the city. We can however, design the roads to accommodate cars, bicycles, and mass transit and ultimately get autos to slow down because they have no other option. We just haven’t made the pedestrian, bicycle or mass transit experience a design priority in Peoria.
Additional questions come to mind when you factor in Bradley University. What percentage of neighborhood traffic is related to Bradley students driving to and from campus or employees driving to and from work? Most Bradley students come to Peoria knowing they must either own a car or have access to a car to get around town. Does the University really want city planners and engineers to continue perpetuating that need? Wouldn’t it be better for the neighborhoods to have more pedestrian traffic? Many communities have worked collaboratively with their local universities and colleges to create an environment where their students and citizenry have enhanced transportation options. If you make it possible for people/families to get around without the need for multiple cars there will be fewer cars. These are design and planning problems that can be solved by our engineers and city planners and made a reality by our local politicians.
One of the frustrations I have had as a Heart of Peoria Commissioner is witnessing how problems are approached in Peoria. Currently, it seems for solutions to be viewed as credible, policy makers want the ideas to have originated here. I am not suggesting Peorians are incapable of solving problems, but many times the answers lie outside our level of local experience. If we adopted this view in other aspects of life we would not be using aspirin, artificial joints, tractors, airplanes etc. because they were not invented in Peoria. We know it would be foolish for us to reject innovation in the business world simply because the ideas originated elsewhere; therefore, why are we skeptical about new ideas in the public sector? Shouldn’t we be guided by current best practice in all aspects of life- including the public sector? I see us sometimes suffering from the proverbial expression:
Let’s explore how other communities are handling these issues and learn from their successes and failures. We can always tweak the ideas to accommodate the “uniqueness” of Peoria. I have learned so much from reading, attending conferences and interviewing people who have solved some of the municipal problems we face. I would be happy to share this information with anyone interested and I have asked CJ if he would be willing to upload a variety of documents for people to read at their convenience. I will get them organized and send them CJ’s way.
Peoria is not the first place to struggle with how to manage traffic and pedestrians while trying to cultivate a great quality of life. We would benefit from looking outside of Peoria. Ignorance is not bliss.
I live on the 1000 block of North Underhill, one the side that does not enjoy the calming effect of the diverter. Drivers who do not care to wait for the Main and University light regularly turn on my street and take ajoining Russell Street to University. We have 7 houses on the block and much more traffic than those 7 houses could generate. We are the City’s most popular cut-thru and the residents do not like that fact. I’m continuing to advocate that my block be turned into a one-way street between Russell and Main, in order to keep the Main Street traffic on Main Street.
I’m at work, so I only have time to post 1 quick comment… The reason the Arbor district wanted to consider cul de sacing Rebecca is because there is no turn lane for cars to turn left onto Rebecca from Main Street. It is a very dangerous turn, and cars fly around the corner trying to beat the oncoming busy traffic coming from Western/Main Street. It is much safer for me to access my house on Rebecca from turning left onto Laura where there is a turn lane, or turning left onto Bradley where there is a stoplight.
Thanks for the comment, Arbor Resident. You make a good point about safety at that corner. I think that concern could be alleviated in other ways besides making Rebecca a cul-de-sac. For instance, left turns could simply be prohibited, but still allow people to turn right onto and off of Rebecca.