Hannibal Lecter wrote:muncien wrote:I tend to agree about the parking... But, the width of Commerce itself is excessive; Almost to the point that it's difficult to parallel park at times when vehicles come flying down that street. Uncle Ubers is one of my main reasons for visiting DE, but that street is a dangerous mess. It would seem that removing a traffic lane, and using it for a bike lane would help on both fronts. Was that a viable option?
The plan is to make Commerce and Elm both two-way streets, with one lane of traffic each way. Between delivery trucks, Uber/Lyft, food delivery pick-ups, bands loading/unloading their equipment, bus stops, beer bikes, emergency vehicles, people trying to parallel park for the first time in 20 years and lanes closed for construction the streets will be gridlocked for much of the day. Elm already gets blocked at times with cars/trucks parked side-by-side blocking both lanes.
I'm not terribly convinced that converting one-way to two-way streets is the best idea. I know people will say 'study after study says....', but IMO as a pedestrian, crossing a one-way street from a directional standpoint is actually easier than a two way street. The problem is SPEED of traffic. Yes, going two-way will slow down traffic, but I don't believe it is the only (or best) way to do so. I would think that Commerce could easily split a lane into two bike lanes (outside of the parallel parked cars), as well as some other traffic calming measures, and meet the needs of Peds, Bikers, Drivers, and Parkers, to a better degree. Hopefully, this hasn't been given up on completely.
There is also opportunity to convert an alley (such as 'Clover St') into a bikeway of sorts. But that seems like more work. IDK