Wow.
That was about all I could come up with when I first read the Times-Dispatch article, "New Richmond plan includes two-way traffic", this morning about the new master plan for downtown Richmond. Notice that it wasn’t "WOW!". It’s really more of a "what the hell are they thinking?!".
Really? No one-way streets? Sure, the one-ways can be a little bit of a pain in the ass sometimes, but they really aren’t that big of a deal. It certainly isn’t confusing downtown. I can’t imagine some of the streets that are one-way and very heavily used turning into two-way streets.
My main concern is that heavily travelled streets that right now see a little bit of congestion (ever been on Main Street around 5pm on a weekday?) are going to be bottle-necked if they have to give up half of the travel lane in a particular direction.
I like some of the other ideas they came up with, such as making the streets friendlier to pedestrians than they are to auto traffic.
The conversion of the one-way streets is first on the agenda, according to the Mayor. I would like to hear your opinions on the one-way streets. Are they really that big of a concern? Is getting around downtown Richmond really that confusing? (And if it is, then I must be some kind of super-genius when it comes to directional sense — and anyone who knows me should be able to dispel that idea.)
