Church St Goes From Four Lanes to Two
Decatur Metro | March 21, 2009Back in the early ’80s, Decatur widened Church St. from two lanes to four. Now, the city is heading in the other direction…at least for the moment.
Straight from the Glendale Park Master Plan page…
Because no parking will be available in Glenlake Park during construction, one lane of traffic in each direction on Church Street will be closed and on-street parking will be provided for residents who cannot walk to the Tennis Center and Glenlake Pool. The plan will use a variety of traffic control devices, raised pavement markers, signs and other measures to narrow Church Street to 2 lanes and is temporary during construction. On-street parking also should help calm traffic, make it safer for pedestrians accessing the park along Church Street and allow the park improvements to be completed as quickly as possible.
See a map of the plans here (pdf).
Though the note says the change is temporary, its most likely a trial phase for a key element of the Community Transportation Plan: decreasing the number of lanes on many of our major streets. And yes, Church Street is among them.
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I’ve had a chance to drive the new configuration multiple times at rush hour, in both directions, and am pleased to announce that the sky has not fallen. We have not sentenced ourselves to the terminal stranglehold of gridlock and those who base their degree of spiritual satisfaction on the ability of their car to move around unfettered can breathe a hearty sigh of relief. All is well.
Kidding (sort of) aside, the only difference I’ve noticed is that people are driving a little more slowly and carefully. That beats “maximum automotive throughput” in my book. I hope the changes become permanent.
This is pretty cool and Decatur is again leading by example. The City of Atlanta recently completed their Comprehensive Transportation Plan called Connect Atlanta. It too calls for numerous “road diets”. If this works perhaps it will embolden them act on the plan more quickly.
While I can certainly agree with attempts to slow traffic down, this drastic change is a major traffic snarl during the morning commute. This morning the westbound traffic was backed up all the way past Forkner/Medlock Rd. making it impossible to turn onto Church in that direction. And yes, people are slowing down–almost too slow to keep traffic moving efficiently. Isn’t there a more sane way to slow down traffic without creating more problems further down the road? And while I’m at it–what do we have to do to get traffic lights timed and roads repaired in our fair city?
I can confirm Bee’s report. I turn left off Forkner (turns into Medlock) onto Church every morning about 8:00. Many days the traffic is backed up well past the city limit.
And there’s something about Church St: cars fill the intersection when the light changes. (Same thing happens at Ponce and Sycamore during heavy traffic. I’ll add that to Bee’s pet peeve list.) At Forkner/Medlock, cars have started trying to cut ahead of the traffic to that light, only to find it’s too backed up to turn onto Church. This only adds the problem for neighborhood folks trying to get out in any direction.
Amazing what going from four lanes to two will do. Slows down traffic, yes, but people need to get into town and I’m sure this wasn’t the intention. On the other hand, Glennlake will need parking this summer (though perhaps not at 8 AM). Alternatives?
“what do we have to do to get traffic lights timed”
– unfortunately, we are at the mercy of DeKalb County, who does traffic engineering in the City and who IMHO, have never had a clue about how to set up or maintain traffic signals.