Raise the Hammer

I was looking at a 2008 report on operational improvements to James and John (PW08141, if you're curious) and it contains a map of proposed two-way conversions under 2001's Downtown Transportation Master Plan. King is earmarked; Main and Cannon are not.

The conversion of James and John North, the first of the downtown two-way conversions, was completed in October 2002. The southern conversions of those streets was completed in November 2005.

The report notes: "Under the requirements for an Environmental Assessment, projects not completed within a five-year time frame must be revisited." I imagine that this is part of the reason why the conversion of York/Wilson was delayed.

While we're talking delays, since this is a perennial itch of critics, PW08141 notes: "The magnitude of the extra delay in rush hour for the major directions is in the range of one minute and twenty seconds to three minutes and fifty seconds. On a percentage basis, the additional delay is an increase from 32% to 90%. These delays are longer thab predicted by the original DMTP report, for which there may be two reasons. First, there was an expectation that the slower speed and added congestion of the two-way conversion would cause a diversion of traffic away from the downtown streets, but the data above (sic) shows that diversion has not occurred. Second, while the consultant used a sophisticated, micro-level model, it is still not possible to capture all of the effects, such as illegal parking, or vehicle breakdowns, which cause congestion. When a street system such as James/John is operating close to, or over, its maximum ability to carry traffic, it becomes very sensitive to minor effects such as this. It can be seen that the'new' directions of travel created (northbound James, southbound John) are typically between 30 seconds and one minute slower to travel than the parallel streetwith the original movement in the same direction."