Week Without Driving Diary (II)

This is a contentious season for mobility issues, as indeed it has been for practically everything else. Earlier this month, Kea Wilson of Streetsblog USA reported that the U.S. Department of Transportation is rescinding grants for multimodal projects, including in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Bloomington-Normal, Illinois; and in the Naugatuck Valley area of Connecticut. Two of the applicants were specifically told the program was reallocating its grants to "projects that promote vehicular travel," which is consistent with the trend under Secretary Sean Duffy to shift away from previous goals of sustainability and equity (Wilson 2025, Ionescu 2025). 

Despite this sad pass to which we've come, the City of Cedar Rapids is back to celebrate National Week Without Driving, promoted by America Walks and Disability Rights Washington. While these organizations are not against other goals like physical fitness or sustainability, their focus is firmly on equity: Thirty percent of Washington residents are nondrivers--disabled people who can't drive, people who can't afford a vehicle or gas, have suspended licenses or lack documentation to get a license, people who are too young to drive, choose not to drive or who have aged out of driving. But nondrivers are largely invisible... ("How Would You Get Around" 2025).

Monday, September 29 (sunny, 87F)

City staff handing out bagels and coffee to morning commuters

Biked to: Ground Transportation Center, St. Paul's United Methodist Church, Next Page Books

Yes, some people who are unable to drive, including When Driving Is Not an Option author Anna Zivarts, are able to get around by bicycle!

I started my morning with a "second breakfast" of a bagel and small coffee from Panera at the Ground Transportation Center, courtesy of the Cedar Rapids Department of Community Development and the Corridor Metropolitan Planning Organization. (They did events like this last year, too, but I somehow missed them. How is that possible? What is this blog for anyhow?) The GTC is the transfer point for all routes except the Marion and Northeast circulators, and those riders whose attention we were able to get were pleasantly surprised. Buses provide a critical route to work or school for those whose mobility is limited, and because of the system's coverage orientation (Walker 2008) they are never going to be self-funding.

I arrived at the station about 8:00 a.m., which meant I navigated into downtown during the 10 minutes where the morning traffic is likely to be at its most intense. Nothing untoward happened, but I was conscious of being agile and knowledgeable enough to minimize encounters with cars. The most awkward moment was when I turned left in what appeared to be a brief break in opposing traffic, only to have the car I was turning behind slow way down to turn into a parking spot just around the corner (that probably shouldn't be a parking spot that close to the intersection)--unexpected but not dangerous. In all, I rode about eight miles to three places.

Bicycles are not only lighter and slower than cars, they are much easier to steal. When I stopped late in the morning at Next Page Books, Cedar Rapids' oldest independent bookstore, I locked my bike to a large post to which another bicycle was already locked. That bike immediately began emitting meek little beeps, which may have been intended to deter theft?

Passengers boarding the #7 bus

David Zipper's newsletter this morning discussed autonomous vehicles, which when fully ripe will contribute somehow to mobility. But there is a dangerous potential for "robotaxis," Zipper argues, to become so pleasant that everyone will spend more time in cars: The resulting spike in car traffic would be catastrophic for cities with limited street space. Crushing gridlock could exasperate residents, hobble employers, and cripple bus service. Mobility hubs, like one currently planned for Waco, Texas, haven't proven effective at changing travel habits. He concludes that since more than 90 percent of transit riders arrive at the station on foot, I sometimes wonder if cities and transit agencies should simply shift the resources... toward building high-quality sidewalk networks. Cedar Rapids, to its credit, had a huge push for sidewalk construction about a decade ago, though there are still places where they're needed. 

Tuesday, September 30 (sunny, high 87F)

Boarding the #5 to downtown Cedar Rapids at the Twixt Town Road transfer point.
The Northeast Circulator is in foreground; the Marion Circulator is in front of the 
apartment building across the street.

Bused to: (1) Trims Barbershop and Uptown Coffee, (2) Helen G. Nassif YMCA and Benz Beverage Depot [replaced at least one car trip]

Life and the transit system took me to Marion today. Google estimates the 4.5 miles from my home take about 11 minutes by car; the bus trip was about three times that, including the five blocks' walk to the stop.

Bus stop on 1st Avenue at 19th Street SE

I should probably consult Jarret Walker or someone about how much longer the bus can take versus a car trip and still attract ridership, but 3:1 is if I recall correctly pretty typical of Washington, D.C. Getting to Marion starts with the #5 bus, which runs up and down 1st Avenue every 15 minutes, making it Cedar Rapids' best bus line. The transfer point has moved over the years since the advent of the circulator a few years ago from Lindale Mall to the edge of the mall parking lot to where it is now, in front of an apartment building on Twixt Town Road. (Twixt Town Road, named by a poetically inclined city employee ages ago, runs along the border between Cedar Rapids and Marion.) The circulator got me to Uptown Marion ahead of my appointment, so I got to hang out in their remodeled City Square Park on a lovely morning. 

City Square, Marion

(It even has public restrooms!)

After the stop by City Square, the Marion circulator ranges far and wide over the town. For that reason I expect it's not practical for anyone above maybe 15th Street unless they're desperate. I expect that's a dilemma for any transit system, even one that's committed to coverage: how to balance convenient access to all the places people live with how much inconvenience we expect them to endure to get where they're going. But for me today, with the "right" trip planned, and a flexible schedule, the bus was great. There were 19 riders headed downtown on my return trip, so it was right for others as well.

Jean-Paul Sartre, author of The Critique of Dialectical Reason
 (Swiped from algundiaenalgunaparte.com)

On my afternoon ride downtown on the #2, we participated in what Jean-Paul Sartre called a "group-in-fusion," when a gentleman in a wheelchair had to maneuver around a woman with a walker. I wound up holding her walker while he got situated. Then, back on route #5 for the outbound trip, it happened again when a number of the 20-plus riders moved seats to make room for another rider and his wheelchair. "Yay, team bus riders," one lady said. On a day when President Trump proposed to use cities as military training grounds, our city's residents were taking care of each other.

Gil Penalosa's Cities for Everyone webinar today featured Phil Ginsburg, general manager of parks for the city of San Francisco. San Francisco aims to provide a park within a 10-minute walk for everyone in the city, including rerouting car traffic from Golden Gate Park and along the Pacific coast to improve safe access--not directly related to transportation alternatives, but definitely sharing the same goals of equity (cf. Hartlaub 2025).

Wednesday, October 1 (sunny, high 84F)

Biked to: Vault Coworking Space

Walked to: (1) Healthiest State Lunch at Greene Square, (2) Wellington Heights neighborhood

Today's official observance of Week Without Driving was the Healthiest State Walk, which originated from three locations and ended with lunch on the lawn at Greene Square. I joined a group that originated at the Cedar Rapids History Center on 2nd Avenue, which for me entailed walking an additional mile or so north from the Wendler (formerly Geonetric) Building where I'm coworking today. My route to the meetup point was highly unpleasant, up 6th and 7th Streets and dealing with a lot of medical and Interstate 380 vehicular traffic that wasn't expecting to have to deal with me. That included but was not limited to a woman on 7th Street signaling for a right turn at 6th Avenue who went through the intersection without turning--she was turning right into a parking lot past the street, not onto the street itself--and was not going to yield to the blogger in the crosswalk. Were I not fit and agile, I would never have attempted this walk.

The Healthiest State Walk proper and the lunch (catered by Craftd) were quite convivial; my group's walk was led by MedQuarter executive director Phil Wasta. Greene Square is a great space when it's activated. Betsy Borchardt from the City brought her dog to the park, who provided some drama as she squirmed to get at a nearby squirrel. Sadly or happily, depending on your perspective, her natural drive was denied.

Walking to lunch at Greene Square

In the evening, I went back out to do some door-to-door canvassing in the Wellington Heights neighborhood about a proposed restroom in Redmond Park. This effort is not directly related to Week Without Driving, but is aiming at the same goal of inclusive communities.

The latest Active Towns podcast episode arrived today. Host John Simmerman interviewed triathlete-turned-real estate mogul Michael Lovato, a resident of Boulder, Colorado. They describe Boulder as a haven for active people, which can include professional athletes but also people who want to stay physically fit and those who want to remain active through physical decline--all reasons to make it feasible to live well without driving!

Thursday, October 2 (sunny, high 86F)

Bused to: Helen G. Nassif YMCA, Lightworks Cafe [replaced car trip even though I...]

Drove 😒 to: CSPS Hall

As Rook Wilde took the stage at CSPS Hall tonight,
it was already dark outside

I made it to Thursday of the Week Without Driving without driving, but I saw this event on my calendar and knew it would break the skein. CSPS Hall, an eclectic arts venue where I frequently volunteer, is a hair over two miles from my house. I've frequently bicycled there during the day, and it's a mere three blocks from the #2 bus line stop by the Linn County Public Health building. But I'm not a confident night cyclist in a town that doesn't expect me, and the last city bus leaves the station at 7:15 p.m. With tonight's concert expected to go past 9:00, I opted to drive my car. I'm grateful I have that option available.

CSPS's one non-driving staff member, photographer Charles Black, lives in an apartment six blocks away, so he and his camera rely on an e-bike. He's going to be moving soon, though, due to the city's zoning-related demands on his current landlord. Happily he found an abode even closer--now he'll be only four blocks from CSPS Hall!

A new month reminds me to check my bike tires!

The Community Development folk were back at the Ground Transportation Center this afternoon, with treats for afternoon commuters, particularly high school students who use the city bus to get to and from school. They were planning to serve ice cream, but weren't sure about the logistics, particularly on another unseasonably warm day. I didn't get down there, but I wonder how it went?

Elsewhere, Cleveland-based blogger Angie Schmitt wrote today about an Ohio legislator's claim that traffic deaths are over-hyped. He told Schmitt's group that 1,300 annual traffic deaths in a state with a population over 11 million amounted to a very tiny risk. Yet, as Schmitt argues:

The thing is, these odds add up over time. Most people... live for 60 or 80 years if they're lucky. Risks compound... If we were to take those tiny fractions and add them up year after year, guess what? They start getting bigger. In the U.S., using 2022 data, the odds of being killed in a car crash over a lifetime are 1 in 93. More than 1 in 100 Americans can expect to die in a car crash over the course of their lifetimes.

Traffic safety, by this mathy logic, is a concern for everyone, not merely collateral damage from our (enjoyment of? attempts to accommodate to? assertion of individuality in?) car-dependent city design. That Ohio legislator was wrong to diminish the issue of traffic safety, but for many of us, he only said the quiet part out loud. 

The same can be said for non-drivers, whether they are that way from necessity or choice: they are people with legitimate stakes in how we roll, not mere statistical anomalies in what James Howard Kunstler once called "the era of happy motoring."

Friday, October 3 (sunny, high 88F)

Biked to: Coe College, Bricks Bar and Grill

My bike parked at Coe. The pergola at right honors the late Professor Dan Lehn.

I spent my day at my office at Coe College, from where I mostly retired a year and a half ago, then met some friends for happy hour at Bricks downtown.

Entrance to Bricks

Bricks has been in town longer than I have (1989), but is still going strong under the management of the Fun Not Fancy group. It is located where the main bike trail crosses 2nd Avenue SE, and though they hosted the after party for Bike to Work Week 2014, they haven't visibly appealed to cyclists as much as other bars along the trail have.

City bike rack outside Bricks, with my bike and my friend Chris's bike

In all, I rode about four miles to three places.

This year the city added to the commemoration of Week Without Driving a commuter bike ride in the style of Bike to Work Week. That happened today, riding downtown mostly on the Cedar Valley Nature Trail from McCloud Place on the northeast side in the morning, and back in the late afternoon. The same ride in May drew a small handful of riders, but everyone we can get into the spirit of this idea represents a step forward.

Rick Reilly's column in today's Washington Post demands greater regulation of e-bikes. The same technology that enables Charles to get his camera to and from CSPS Hall, and extends the possibility of bicycle rides, can be ridden aggressively and dangerously.  He cites a number of examples from his home state of California as well as suburban Chicago. Reilly recommends requiring drivers' licenses to drive any motorized vehicle, as well as fines and community service for violators. All this requires enforcement, however, and for a variety of good and bad reasons police presence on the streets has diminished nationwide. Accommodating non-drivers, especially those who are especially vulnerable, in our transportation system won't work unless the streets, and sidewalks and bike lanes, are safe.

Saturday, October 4 (sunny, high 86F)

Rode to: Bruegger's Bagels [replaced car trip]

Drove 😒 to: Zoey's Pizza

My bike in front of Bruegger's Bagels

A day after parts of Montana got socked with a foot of snow, we are still having summerlike temperatures, threatening but so far not breaking daily record highs. We have set a seasonal record with nine straight highs in the 80s.

I dodged a drive this morning because my list of errands stopped at one: to pick up bagels for Sunday breakfast. Bruegger's, the national bagel chain, has two Cedar Rapids locations, one only about two miles from our house. Mt. Vernon Rd. SE is a notorious stroad, but Bruegger's is on the north (our) side of the stroad, so I can get there by side streets. Once there, I spotted former mayor Ron Corbett among the diners. They offer free coffee if you order ahead through the app, and I managed to get that home in my drink holder without spilling too much. A four-mile bike ride with a dark roasted reward reminds me that Coffeeneuring starts in about a week; check the hashtag on your favorite social medium for more information, or you can live vicariously through the ride-by-ride coverage on Holy Mountain.

Saturday night I drove us out to dinner. We could have tried adhering to the letter of Week Without Driving--at the very least, Jane could have driven instead of me--but we didn't. The dining options within walking distance on a hot evening were not enticing, which carries a lesson for us all. Those of us who can drive sometimes drive because we don't feel like not driving.

Greater Greater Washington today posted an article by disability advocate Kelly Mack, who writes a blog on Substack called Rolling With It and uses a power wheelchair to get around Washington, D.C. She praises the improvements in mobility (transit buses with ramps, Metrorail elevators, more accessible taxis, sidewalks in good repair) during the 2000s. "I could access: work, medical appointments, stores for errands, and the many leisure activities I enjoyed, like visiting restaurants, theaters, and museums." Lately, though, she's "noticed a steady decline in the quality of accessible transportation options," with widespread broken elevators at Metro stations, erratic bus service, unplowed sidewalk ramps, and such. She refers to a "transportation rime tax" for disabled citizens whereby "Every piece of the transportation puzzle adds up to subtract time and energy from my life." As an advocate, she meets frequently with government officials on these very subjects, but finds only lip service, which she calls the "uh... hm factor." Mack, unlike me, can't drive herself when other options are too inconvenient or strenuous. It would be good to have a disability advocate, and I know they're out there, do some audits as part of next year's Week Without Driving in Cedar Rapids.

Week Without Driving is a good experience, if only for raising awareness. I found it not difficult to manage, with only a couple defections, because I'm [a] agile enough to walk places, [b] retired so I can roll with the bus's schedule, and [c] able to fall back on driving when all else fails. It would be more interesting to read about the regular experience of someone who literally can't drive.

City of Cedar Rapids Week Without Driving page

LAST YEAR: "Week Without Driving Diary," 30 September  

Safe Streets Open House

 

Early in the Safe Streets Open House

The Corridor Metropolitan Planning Organization is in the final stages of formulating an action plan for transportation safety. "The goal of the plan," they say, "is to reduce traffic-related injuries and fatalities while enhancing mobility for all." While the overall plan is multifaceted, including attention to users, vehicles, and post-crash care, last week's open house at the New Bo City Market focused on design elements to reduce danger whatever your choice of transportation mode.

Posted maps displayed the areas designated, by features as well as five years of crash history, as High Risk Networks. Not surprisingly, these areas tend to be high-speed streets through commercial strips on the edge of town as well as 1st Avenue.

City and county intersections designated as High Injury Network
(Source: City of Cedar Rapids)

Risks were broken down by type of motor vehicle crash (head on collision, other angle collision, fixed object), with separate maps for motorcycles and "vulnerable road users" (pedestrians, bicyclists, wheelchair users, and the like). I was surprised to see one of the highest risk stretches for VRUs was 6th Avenue in Marion between 7th and 22nd Streets.

High Risk Network: VRU crash type
(author photograph from MPO poster)

This is a recently designed street, intended to draw through traffic off 7th Avenue so that 7th can serve as the main street of Uptown Marion. Still, 6th Avenue also goes through Marion, and is how you get to the Marion Public Library, City Hall, and the West End Diner; it's the southern border of City Square Park, and the Grant Wood Trail runs alongside it. This seems a matter for urgent attention!

Besides the maps, the posters displayed a number of options for treatments to improve safety.

The complete list of 15 proposed treatments is on the project webpage, cited below. I wish they had included the approximate construction costs of each treatment, so we could see the comparative price of each unit of harm reduction. I imagine that what's appropriate or effective will vary by context. For example, a traffic signal with a leading pedestrian interval seems to work in crowded downtown areas, but maybe not in higher speed zones where drivers are looking to make a right turn on red and aren't expecting a pedestrian or a cyclist. (Possible recency bias alert: I'm thinking of where Blairs Ferry Road NE crosses C Street, and happily this morning, the driver saw me crossing in time.)

Focus on transportation safety is most welcome. Can we do more than react to current situations? We should certainly stop building the unproductive, dangerous stroads that make up most of the high-risk routes. Given the role of cars, and hence car dependence, in fatalities, we could think of ways to facilitate alternatives to motor vehicles as well (despite the hostility of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy). I also advocate more traffic enforcement; I understand the risk to police, but driving is getting ridiculously aggressive.

The online comment period lasts til October 2. The next steps, I imagine, are the preparation of the final plan and funding (if available) for specific projects.

High-risk stretches in the core of our city

City of Cedar Rapids Safe Streets for All page

10th Anniversary Post: One Way or Two?

 

Coe Road NE is two-way as of March 2025

Cedar Rapids undertook a number of ambitious street initiatives in the 2010s, including adding bike lanes and converting signalized intersections to four-way stops. Perhaps the most ambitious was converting most of our one-way streets back to two-way. This undid efforts from the late 1950s through the 1960s, intended to relieve traffic congestion. As in most places where this had been undertaken, urban neighborhoods wound up paying the price in lost property value and increased danger, while suburbanites found they didn't really want to go downtown that much anyway.

3rd Ave SE: Downtown on a rainy January day in 2013

Returning to two-way streets comes recommended by urbanists, based in part on the experience of cities like Savannah, Georgia, which saw a dramatic recovery along East Broad Street once it had been reconverted (Speck 2012: 179-180). Along with Jeff Speck, who consulted with the City of Cedar Rapids on urbanist projects throughout the decade, I quoted Seattle-based David Sucher, author of City Comforts: If one's goal is to move as many cars as possible through a neighborhood, the couplet [of one-way streets] works well. But if the goal is to create comfortable shopping districts, make streets two-way (2003: 86).

 If the impacts on commercial districts are bad, imagine what one-way streets do to residential neighborhoods, whose residents find themselves living on a speedway meant for others, on which they can only approach their homes from one direction.

3rd Avenue SE in the one-way era, July 2014

Ten years ago, the city stated the following goals for the initiative:

make the streets accessible and easier to navigate

improve opportunities to walk or bike

increase visibility of downtown businesses

slow traffic

I added my own measurable outcome--The conversion will be a success if it facilitates transformation of the city center into a 24-hour downtown, with a successful commercial enterprises, permanent residents and cultural attractions all contributing to a vibrant place--

which seems in retrospect to be quite the high if desirable bar. I blame my hot-headed youth. It's safe to say that hasn't happened, nor have the three most prominent opposing views come to pass (traffic congestion, traffic crashes, mass confusion).

1500 block of 3rd Avenue SE:
 conversion in process, October 2019

By this point, most of our one-way streets have been reconverted, the major exceptions being 15th and 16th Avenues SW, and 3rd and L Streets SW.  13th Street/College Drive/Oakland Road is still one-way between 2nd Avenue SW and H Avenue NE, and a few one-way blocks remain here and there on other streets as well, but our one-way street mileage today is a tiny percentage of what it was in 2010.

3rd Avenue SW is now two-way, L Street is still one-way

Measuring the impact of all these changes is tricky, partly because I have some but not very much data, and partly because there are other moving parts (many more bike lanes and sidewalks in town, construction projects necessitating extended closure of streets near the river, diminished use of offices post-COVID, closing of two blocks of 2nd Avenue SW for Physicians Clinic of Iowa, no discernable influx of population into the city) affecting the use of streets. So the assessments that follow are tentative.

My overall assessment is cautiously positive. I see no significant negative impacts at all, while positive changes to the affected blocks are less-than-revolutionary. Given that one-way streets are inherently confusing, I believe the first objective to be a slam dunk, but the others are subtle or require data I don't have.

Changes in daily traffic counts are interesting, but don't give us a lot to go on. The first round of reconversions, between 2015 and 2017, occurred on 2nd and 3rd Avenues SE/SW, 4th and 5th Avenues SE, and 7th and 8th Streets SE. On 7th and 8th--which remain one-way close to the Interstate entrance--traffic counts away from the Interstate remain roughly the same. On 2nd and 3rd, traffic counts have declined, but the biggest declines occurred well before the conversion, possibly due to changes in the downtown work/shopping scene. Also, 2nd Avenue SE no longer is continuous, since two blocks were closed early in the 2010s to make room for the new Physicians Clinic of Iowa campus. No data are available for 4th and 5th Avenues. (Profuse thanks to the Iowa Department of Transportation for sending along historic traffic count maps.)

Average Daily Traffic Counts, 3rd Avenue SE/SW

(some stretches have multiple readings)

YEAR 1500-1900e 1000-1500e 500-1000e 000-500e     BRIDGE 600w-000

1993                             8300

2005                         7900

2009 4390,6600 8400 6400         4250

2013 3750 4770,5900 4870 4910            4560         3490

2015 conversion from 6th St SW to 3rd St SE

2017 conversion from 5th Ave SW to 6th St SW

2017         3260,5700 4300 3220,2870    3450            2180

2018 conversion from 3rd St to 19th St SE

2021 3720 4370,6700

Speck argues that the most profound negative land use effects of one-way streets are found on the streets leading into downtown, "since most people do most of their shopping on the evening path home" (2012: 178). So we could look for changes on 2nd and 4th Avenues SE, 3rd Avenue SW, and on Center Point Road NE.

• All of the former one-way sections of these streets began in residential neighborhoods, typically with older single-family housing. Of the four streets, the neighborhood on 3rd Avenue SW is the most transformed, because it was most impacted by the flood. 2nd Avenue has seen a dramatic decrease in traffic because of the two block closure between 12th and 10th Streets, but there's been no new building in the mostly empty 1200 block.

  

  Start of the converted section, 1800 block of 2nd Ave SE

  
  

Each street must pass through an empty quarter before it reaches downtown: 2nd and 4th Avenues go through the MedQuarter, Center Point Road becomes Coe Road between Coe College and St. Luke's Hospital, and 3rd Avenue passes underneath I-380. Such commercial development as there is on the far side of the empty quarter remains pretty much untouched.

2nd Avenue enters the MedQuarter
(PCI building is at the end of the block)

Only at 3rd Street and below has 3rd Avenue seen a lot of investment as the Kingston Village area has emerged post-flood. (Coe Road at this writing is still one-way below A Avenue NE.) 2nd Avenue has held its own close to downtown, with a mix of offices and restaurants, but a surprising amount of vacancies as well. 4th Avenue has seen very little change. And we don't have anything like a "24-hour downtown."

Before the conversion: 200 block of 2nd Avenue SE,
August 2017 (Google Earth screenshot)

After the conversion: 200 block of 2nd Avenue SE,
this week

So, no dramatic change from the reconverted one-way streets, except for what's explainable by post-flood recovery, MedQuarter expansion, and post-pandemic declines in downtown office occupancy. Cedar Rapids, unlike, say, Providence or Charlotte, has not seen an influx of population that would force more transformation.

I still support the reconversions, for simplicity's sake, because it creates opportunity for future development, and for safety. A three-lane one-way street carrying 8400 cars through a residential neighborhood is not good for the quality of life of the people living there. A three-lane one-way street carrying half that many would be even less safe, because there would be more room for speeding.

ORIGINAL POST: "One Way or Two?" 22 September 2015

FOLLOW UP POST: "One Way or Two? (II)," 18 October 2015

OTHER SOURCES: 

Jeff Speck, Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2012)

David Sucher, City Comforts; How to Build an Urban Village (City Comforts Inc., revised ed., 2003)