3rd Avenue is two-way!

parking, bike lane, auto lane all headed downtown

The City of Cedar Rapids completed an important step towards improved walkability when the last stretch of 3rd Avenue SE was opened to two-way traffic this week. The one-way-to-two-way conversion had been achieved in increments, but this final segment, from 13th to 19th Streets, is arguably the most important. It goes through Wellington Heights, a historic neighborhood whose decline was hastened by the transformation of its major streets into multi-lane one-way high-speed "auto sewers" (to use James Howard Kunstler's phrase) in the late 1950s.

Now that mistake has been undone. The streets are still wider than they probably used to be, but that width accommodates bike and parking lanes. Expect auto speeds to slow, which will improve the lives of cyclists and pedestrians, and will make the neighborhood feel like a neighborhood again instead of houses crouched on the edge of an expressway. (The one-way development occurred before the building of Interstate 380, which is an actual expressway.) Walking to school, or church, or Redmond Park, now is thinkable for 8-year-olds and 80-year-olds.

I really enjoyed watching the project unfold:

Aug 5: 18th St closed for redo of the intersection with 3rd

Aug 6: 3rd Av approaching 18th St

intersection of 3rd Av & 17th St

Aug 25: Squaring the intersection at Park Av

Squaring the intersection at Grande Av,
but with loss of access to 16th Street

View from 16th Street: You can turn east onto Grande,
and if feeling bold get over to 3rd

17th Street, Blake Boulevard, and a big pile of gravel

Sept 1: 17th Street which now ends in a cul-de-sac south of 3rd/Blake

3rd Av & 17th St

Longer view

Building bulbout at Park Avenue

3rd Av, 16th St and Grande Av with new improved sidewalk route

Sept 5: Ridgewood Terrace cul-de-sac

Sept 10: 19th Street approaching 3rd Av,
where four-way stop replaced traffic light

3rd Av & 19th St

Sept 20: Blocking off the left two lanes on 3rd Avenue

Sept 22: 3rd Av and Blake Blvd; 17th St cul-de-sac at right

Sept 29: finishing approach of Blake Blvd,
newly squared intersection

New crossing at Park Court

Oct 14: capping 17th St cul-de-sac

Blake Boulevard facing east from 3rd Av

Oct 16: 3rd Av & 19th St

3rd Av bike lanes striped

new sidewalk crossings at 3rd Av & 18th St

I'm blitheringly happy about this achievement, albeit with inevitable qualifications. Care will need to be taken that current residents don't suffer from their neighborhood's new attractiveness, and get gentrified out of it. I don't like it that it is impossible to access Redmond Park from 3rd Avenue, either by 16th Street (access closed) or Park Avenue (one way for one block, because residents protested city plans to change that). I'm ambivalent about closing parts of the intersections at 16th, 17th and 18th to through traffic, although for pedestrians the sidewalks still go through. [I'd thought there would be access for cyclists as well, but there isn't.] I would like to have more traffic controls. And the electronic crossing light by Redmond Park makes a constant "tink" noise that can be heard a block away. That would drive me crazy if I lived on that block.

Oct 23: Auto heading downtown on 3rd Av!

17th St cul-de-sac, with Blake Blvd not quite finished [It is, now]

crossing at Park Ct by Redmond Park (It's rather loud!)

All in all, a positive step. We are more than ever a community of people, rather than a network of car paths.

EARLIER POST: "3rd Avenue Conversion Coming Soon," 30 March 2019