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Road Diets


Missmylab4

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After my comment about road diets on the 7th Street page, the topic had me thinking. What would be the best candidate, street in the city for a road diet? I personally love the East Boulevard diet, and I don't even live in the neighborhood. There are so few pedestrian friendly streets in this city.

My list in no particular order would go:

1. 7th street or Central, one or the other

2. South Boulevard, for a mixed use transit oriented neighborhood; I find the South End neighborhood very underwhelming and uninviting for pedestrians. I think if the gap between Dilworth and South End were closed/remedied you'd see more development on the Dilworth side. Perhaps the future developments would be more oriented towards the street/South Blvd?

Anyways, hopefully the city will continue with more road diets in the future and give the pedestrian a seat at the table.

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I usually think of road diets as occurring on neighborhood roads, whereas I think South and Central both qualify as Boulevards. High volume arterials that are used by the greater city. South Tryon, on the other hand, I think could be a good candidate. It's relatively low volume (commuters past 77 use.. well, 77), and heading into Uptown already has one of the best examples of a road diet I know of. 

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I'll answer a different way.  Instead of road diets, repurposing lanes to mixed with streetcar, errr, tram, or removing lanes and making them exclusive LRT lanes.

 

Diet/LRT best candidate would be Carson Ave.

 

Mixed Tram would be S Tryon, Central, (Providence/Queens/Selwyn), (Kenilworth/Scott), Freedom, (Graham/Dalton/N Tryon)

 

Think about it this way.  The Big Dig in Boston ended up costing between $15 billion and $24 billion (depending on what all you include).  For $15 billion, Charlotte could have one amazing road, bike lane, sidewalk, transit system.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Road diets are interesting things, and can come in all shapes and sizes. East Blvd is an example of a more expensive project. South Mint is an example of a comparatively inexpensive one, since it was mainly a re-striping project. Depending on the context, I think there are tons of possibilities. 

 

  • South Tryon Street all the way through South End would be my #1 choice. You could repurpose the lanes to include parking or bike lanes with a center turn lane and remove a barrier between Wilmore and South End.
  • West Blvd from South End to the airport. Talk about too much capacity and this street should come up. Would be a huge benefit to that corridor, but it would need to be an 'East Blvd-like' investment.
  • Parkwood would be interesting, especially through Belmont.
  • Shamrock Dr
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Would the section of North Tryon where the LRT is planned to run include road diet features?  I know there are sidewalk plans (currently unfunded unless CIP is approved) but I am uncertain about things like bike lanes and traffic calming.

 

That area of North Tryon is a traffic nightmare to begin with at the end of the day (from about University City Blvd to Mallard Creek Church) with some of the worst traffic jams I've seen in the city (non-highway).  Some of it I think is due to bad timing of the traffic lights (which don't seem to make sense), but I also wonder if it is because it is the defacto road towards Concord (non-highway).  

 

Wondering if a road diet would help (by forcing thru traffic to the highway) or just be a ridiculous mistake.

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At one point, 4th Street Extension / Tuckaseegee was supposed to go to 1 lane in each direction with a center turn lane/median...but sounds like that's on hold until $$$ can be 'found'.

http://charmeck.org/city/charlotte/epm/Projects/Transportation/Roads/Pages/J%20and%20W%204th%20St%20Ext%20Tuckaseegee.aspx

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When the S Tryon bridge over 277 was redone, there was a whole study period to make NCDOT happy. If it takes that much teeth pulling over one block (hwy 49 turns left on Morehead, so only Morehead to Carson was physically effected), I can't imagine what it would take to diet S Tryon from Camden/Tremont/Remount North. 

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If rush hour traffic is South Tryon's biggest hurdle, how about trying peak-restricted parking in the outside travel lanes?  Instant transformation of a 4-lane street into a 2-lane street with on-street parking without any major restriping, just curbside signage and parking enforcement during weekday rush hours.  Park It's office is even in South End, on Summit, off Tryon and Camden.

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  • 1 year later...

The reduction of the 4th St Ext is underway and there's quite a bit of progress (this is from Gateway West to the underpass at 77). They've cut out the two center lanes and look ready to add the median.  They are also planning to add bike lines on either side of the road.

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It would be a nightmare between Woodlawn and Tyvola every day.

 

Maybe more people would ride the light rail.

 

 

I'm becoming so anti-car, I'd be okay with all the roads going back to one lane, ha-ha.  Want to live 30 miles from the city?  Enjoy your 3 hour commute.  The rest of us will live in the core and ride our bikes (SAFELY, FINALLY), walk or use mass transit!

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I'm becoming so anti-car, I'd be okay with all the roads going back to one lane, ha-ha.  Want to live 30 miles from the city?  Enjoy your 3 hour commute.  The rest of us will live in the core and ride our bikes (SAFELY, FINALLY), walk or use mass transit!

Yeah I am all for the addition of bike lanes, but removing a lane for cars on busy street just sounds.......well not necessary.

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I think the reference to Park Road getting a road diet is a wishlist rather than a real project.  I don't think it is a real candidate for one.   It works in cases where there is medium amount of traffic, a lot of opportunities for people to chose bike/pedestrian/transit options, and a lot of turning traffic that hang up travel lanes anyway.  I'm not sure Park really qualifies. 

 

4th Extension and J&W Way definitely qualify, as that road was insanely large for the amount of cars it has, but also has a lot of opportunities for pedestrian/bike usage given the colleges and urban development and greenways in the area. 

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I think the reference to Park Road getting a road diet is a wishlist rather than a real project.  I don't think it is a real candidate for one.   It works in cases where there is medium amount of traffic, a lot of opportunities for people to chose bike/pedestrian/transit options, and a lot of turning traffic that hang up travel lanes anyway.  I'm not sure Park really qualifies. 

 

4th Extension and J&W Way definitely qualify, as that road was insanely large for the amount of cars it has, but also has a lot of opportunities for pedestrian/bike usage given the colleges and urban development and greenways in the area. 

Case in point the construction has been going on for a couple of weeks and there is hardly any congestion except when Gateway Apartments has a delivery vehicle.

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