The Necessity Of One Way Streets

Do we still need one way streets in Vancouver?


September 16, 2010

By John Calimente



Read More: http://regardingplace.com/?p=9779

Like many cities in North America in the latter half of the 20th century, Vancouver converted a number of its streets to one way streets to allow commuters to escape the downtown core faster. But with a downtown core that has added over 25,000 people over the last 10 years, faster moving cars is not something we should be encouraging. It’s time to convert those one way streets back.

One way streets are a relatively recent addition to cities in North America, most coming in the post-WWII era. Since the vast majority of streets here are wide enough to accommodate two vehicles side-by-side, the sole reason for originally putting in one way streets was to increase vehicle speeds.

In almost all North American cities, freeways were cut through downtowns in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. With one-way on ramps and off ramps descending onto city streets, it was a relatively easy step to then make those streets one way as well. Automobiles could easily access the freeways with fewer opportunities for accidents with everyone going in the same direction. Traffic flow could be sped up with the synchronization of traffic lights. As downtowns were seen mainly as business centres for workers to flee from after 5pm, the smoother the traffic flow the better.

Of course, Vancouver was caught up in the thinking of the time as well. With freeways planned to link the core with the suburbs, it was only natural that one way streets would soon appear. Seymour and Howe Streets on either side of Granville Street became one way streets in the 1950s after the rebuilding of the Granville Street Bridge. And access to the Georgia Viaduct into downtown pushed one way streets onto Dunsmuir/Melville Streets. To allow easy access to the Burrard and Cambie Street Bridges, Thurlow, Hornby, Smithe, and Nelson were converted. Cordova and Powell/Water Streets allowed traffic to whiz out of downtown to the east while avoiding traffic on busy Hastings Street. Richards and Homer Streets became mainly a series of parking lots that were also accessed by one way streets. One-way Pacific and Expo Boulevards, through mainly industrial areas, allowed easy access to BC Place and a quick route around the downtown core.

Vancouver's unlike Toronto in that its limitations are bridge capacity rather than any inherent road capacity shortage. It could easily handle 2-way-ing (is there a word for that?) of its main 1-ways.

However, the approaches to the downtown peninsula from both the bridges over false creek and from the downtown east side are both heavily configured for feeding onto one-way streets. It would be like 2-waying Richmond and Adelaide east of Yonge. Possible, but not really technically feasible.

When I went back home earlier this summer they were removing one set of ramps or another for the aborted freeway. The evening news, of course, featured several drivers upset about traffic and removing road capacity into downtown.

A number of streets in Downtown South have already been converted from one-way to two-way. That was done maybe 5 years ago.
The affected streets were Beatty, Cambie, and much of Homer Streets - which are in primarily residnetial areas.

Of the streets shown on the map above - Dunsmuir cannot now be two-wayed beacuse it is the route of the separated bike lane.
Hornby is also slated to be the route of another separated bike lane, so it cannot be two-laned either.
The reason for this is that with the bike lane, there are/will be only 2 car lanes in places, and cars waiting to make turns jam up one lane, meaning that there is frequently only one through lane available.

Seymour and Howe provide access to and from Granville Bridge - necessary since Granville Street truncates (for cars) at the Granville St. transit mall at Smithe St. and does not reach the CBD.
Nelson and Smithe provide the one-way couplets to and from Cambie Bridge.

Thurlow (together with Hornby) provide alternatives to congested Burrard Street to provide access to and from Burrard Bridge.
From the CBD, Burrard is congested because it carries a good number of cars headed for Cambie Bridge (via Nelson) since left turns (i.e. to Georgia) are prohibited north of there.
But Thurlow could conceivably be two-wayed, especially since the separated bike lane on Burrard Bridge has reduced car capacity to the bridge from Thurlow (via Beach Ave.).

Richards could conceivably be two-wayed.

Powell and Cordova provide access from the east - they do combine into Commissioner Street to the east (like Ridchmond and Adelaide do, but without a structure) - they could be two-wayed - but I could see a sharp increase in traffic deaths in the DTES given the drugged out pedestrians in the area having to look both ways. Plus having to drive for a longer period through the area could endanger motorists' lives.

Mainland and Hamilton are in Yaletown and have loading docks and angled parking (and dumpsters) on one side - not candidates for two-waying since it forms part of the character of the area.

Renders for the new casino/hotel complex next to BC Place suggest that Pacific Blvd could be two-wayed in future.

Why does this argument keep coming up? There is no correlation between directionality of a street and pedestrian activity. New York is the only true pedestrian city in North America, yet it's got nothing but one way streets - many of them being 6-7 lanes wide. St. Catherine is Montreal's Yonge Street, and it too is a one way street.

Street life is determined by uses along the street, particularly at grade. Another crucial factor is whether or not the city in general is transit oriented enough that most people ply the downtown core on their own two feet. Simply converting a street from 1 to 2 ways will do nothing to add life to it. Meanwhile, if the right steps are taken to fix up the street, the same positive results could be achieved even if the street stayed 1 way all along.

Chuck said:

Why does this argument keep coming up? There is no correlation between directionality of a street and pedestrian activity. New York is the only true pedestrian city in North America, yet it's got nothing but one way streets - many of them being 6-7 lanes wide. St. Catherine is Montreal's Yonge Street, and it too is a one way street.

Street life is determined by uses along the street, particularly at grade. Another crucial factor is whether or not the city in general is transit oriented enough that most people ply the downtown core on their own two feet. Simply converting a street from 1 to 2 ways will do nothing to add life to it. Meanwhile, if the right steps are taken to fix up the street, the same positive results could be achieved even if the street stayed 1 way all along.

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What can make a difference to pedestrian friendliness is vehicle speed and number of lanes. A street with 4 lanes in one direction is going to have faster average traffic than if it had two lanes in each direction, which makes it more hostile to pedestrians. A lot of cities have revitalized streets by making them two way, because the reduction in lanes per direction slows down traffic. If the city were to convert, say, Yonge St to one way, I'd support it only if they narrowed the street so that it's no more than two lanes wide.

With 1-ways you can also take a whole lane for bikes or pedestrian realm improvements and it doesn't totally trash traffic flow. Reducing a 4-lane 1-way to 3 is much cleaner than reducing a 4-lane 2-way. And as pointed out, Yonge street could be narrowed to 2 if it were 1-way. (I would honestly give the car lobby back the fifth lane on Jarvis if it meant we could narrow and 1-way yonge).

Toronto's fault with Richmond and Adelaide was that it let them become mini-expressways, and combined with the way they run through a large part of the city that isn't very active for much of the day anyways it's not really the fault of their being 1-ways that those couple blocks are so awful. The condofication of clubland will improve the area and bring in daytime pedestrians far more than messing with traffic ever will.

MisterF said:

What can make a difference to pedestrian friendliness is vehicle speed and number of lanes. A street with 4 lanes in one direction is going to have faster average traffic than if it had two lanes in each direction, which makes it more hostile to pedestrians.

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But if two of the lanes were taken away for parking, then pedestrian friendliness would increase, and at the same time calm down traffic. It is easier to take away lanes for parking for a one-way street than for a two-way street, especially during rush hour. One way streets allow more protection of pedestrians.

lafard said:

Toronto's fault with Richmond and Adelaide was that it let them become mini-expressways, and combined with the way they run through a large part of the city that isn't very active for much of the day anyways it's not really the fault of their being 1-ways that those couple blocks are so awful. The condofication of clubland will improve the area and bring in daytime pedestrians far more than messing with traffic ever will.

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Bingo! To a pedestrian, land use and the manner in which buildings meet the street is far more important than what happens on the part of the road used by cars. Walk along Richmond west of Yonge, and it becomes quite clear that the street is dead because there's no way for a pedestrian to penetrate the backside of the Bay and Sheraton Hotel. The vacuum created by the under-developed BA site and numerous garage entrances and loading docks makes the street downright unpleasant to walk on, let alone pointless. Who thinks making Richmond 2 ways will solve any of that?

doady said:

But if two of the lanes were taken away for parking, then pedestrian friendliness would increase, and at the same time calm down traffic. It is easier to take away lanes for parking for a one-way street than for a two-way street, especially during rush hour. One way streets allow more protection of pedestrians.

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Yeah I meant two driving lanes. The other lanes could be parallel parking, widened sidewalks, bike lanes, or some combination - as long as it's not turned into a near expressway like Richmond/Adelaide or the one way streets in Hamilton.

As stated the issue pedestrians have with one-way streets isn't the one-way-i-ness but the speed at which traffic tends to move along them. As a result one-way streets that are quasi-expressways will not usually develop a bilt-form along them that support pedestrian activity. One-way streets that have slow moving traffic may be just as pedestrian-friendly as a two-way street meaning pedestrian-related uses and built-form will be attracted to them. The trade-off planners are faced with is balancing the pedestrianization of urban centres with keeping the vehicular traffic flowing. Certain streets may have to be sacrificed to the automotive Gods in order to make other streets pedestrian-friendly. A one-sized-fits-all attitude will only lead to disaster.

True in theory, but not in practice. Cars drive faster on College than they do on Richmond or Adelaide through the core, and yet College is the livelier street. It all comes down to built form. Stopped cars and delivery vehicles always shield pedestrians from the brunt of traffic, and this is particularly true on one way streets. The perfect downtown street should be 3 lanes wide, one way, and allow parking on one side of the street, and bike lanes on the other.

Chuck said:

True in theory, but not in practice. Cars drive faster on College than they do on Richmond or Adelaide through the core, and yet College is the livelier street. It all comes down to built form. Stopped cars and delivery vehicles always shield pedestrians from the brunt of traffic, and this is particularly true on one way streets. The perfect downtown street should be 3 lanes wide, one way, and allow parking on one side of the street, and bike lanes on the other.

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College is a lot livelier outside the core than in it. But I do agree that streets with fast traffic can be good pedestrian streets, there just aren't a lot of them in Toronto. Generally a street with fast moving traffic needs not only a good built form but also some kind of buffer between pedestrians and traffic. Michigan Avenue has landscaping that provides a physical barrier. Gran Via has parallel parking and a lot of amenities to buffer the street. Both have much wider sidewalks than Yonge or Richmond/Adelaide, but the sidewalks on Champs Elysees are enormous, wide enough to make all the traffic kind of irrelevant.

As for New York's one way avenues, they're not exactly known for their free flowing traffic. And St. Catherine in Montreal is narrow - only two driving lanes. I guess that's not far off what you consider the ideal downtown street.