Love in the name of STOP: Recovering a Street's Safety and Productivity

 

3rd Avenue at 15th Street SE, heading downtown

The first time I went downtown after I returned to Cedar Rapids from Belgrade, I had to remind myself not to cross street in front of a car coming half a block away. Cedar Rapids drivers aren't particularly aggressive or malicious, but unlike crowded central Belgrade, drivers can go a long way without seeing a pedestrian, so aren't always ready when they appear. Safer to wait on the curb for the cars to pass.

Yet it wasn't hard to notice some positive changes for the city's walkability in the three weeks I'd been gone. The 16th Avenue bridge between Czech Village and New Bohemia is open. Construction work continues on major new residential developments on 4th and 16th Avenues SE. And, to my surprise and gratification, stop signs were installed on 3rd Avenue at 15th Street. Slowing the cars along 3rd represents a huge step towards restoring the residential quality of this neighborhood.

Here it is in the direction I walk home from church. The ambient light prevents you from seeing the flashing alert lights framing the sign, so you'll just have to believe me.

3rd Avenue at 15th Street SE, heading the other direction

3rd Avenue traverses Wellington Heights, one of the city's oldest neighborhoods. About 1960, in order to facilitate car traffic into and out of downtown, it was widened and made one-way, with predictable results: car speeds increased, the neighborhood declined, and walking became more difficult. (Andrew Price (2021) would say we made the mistake of turning a street created by citizens over to traffic engineers.) In the 1970s and '80s, as businesses left downtown for office parks and strip malls, auto volume on 3rd declined and speeds increased.

3rd Avenue passing Redmond Park, 2014

The 1960 changes to 3rd Avenue had made driving easier and faster. However, as Strong Towns reiterated today as they announced their Safe and Productive Streets campaign, a great street is not about moving automobiles, but about building a successful place.... A street is, and always has been, a platform for growing community wealth and capacity, the framework for building prosperous human habitats (Marohn 2022). Children were growing up on 3rd Avenue, within easy walking distance of an elementary school, a park, and a grocery store, but the redesigned street made it problematic to get to any of them.

In 2019 the city took some major steps towards undoing the damage, restoring two-way traffic, creating bike lanes from the third lane, and fixing intersections to slow turning cars--all definite improvements. One problem that remained was the lack of traffic controls between 10th and 19th Streets, which coupled with average daily traffic counts of 2660-3260 meant that cars could still get up quite a head of steam. Installing a stop sign halfway along should keep vehicle speeds more reasonable.

Four-way stops can still be tricky for pedestrians. 3rd Avenue is about 40 feet wide, and that's a lot of ground to cover before traffic starts coming the other way. I prefer to cross streets when there are no motor vehicles to be seen at all. But stopping cars at 15th should improve safety all along 3rd Avenue.

Remembering my time in the stop sign-chocked Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C., four years ago, I'll suggest some other streets we could work on: 19th Street SE between 3rd and Bever Avenues as well as between Bever and Mt. Vernon Road (4290-7200 adc); Bever Avenue SE between 19th and 34th Streets (4230 adc and the dreaded sharrow logos); and 16th Street NE between B and H Avenues (4890 adc). These are each auto thoroughfares with modest traffic volumes whose long stretches without stops invite drivers to endanger pedestrians and each other. 

When we treat streets like their primary purpose is moving automobiles, we end up with bad streets. We end up with streets that are hostile. Dangerous. Violent. Streets where people don’t want to be..... They are not loved, and places that aren’t loved ultimately lose their capacity and decline (Marohn 2022).

In our city's core, there remains considerable suburban design to undo. As we undo it, we can dream about creating memorable places to live, not just to drive through.