I agree that this route seems not right, they could call this train route "The Hipster" service from fancy Ann Arbor to fancy Traverse City/Petoskey! I bet Governor Snyder would be on the first train.
This route reminds me of the roads up there, they are generally really great! All the different routes I take on State and County roads have had some or all of the route repaved in the past few years. To me, it is evident that rural and northern areas of the state benefit from the current road funding scheme over our urban centers. So I hope things will change and rail routes will include Lansing and areas where mass transit will get the most use. Also, that urban streets will be as well funded as our rural area's. I am going to vote for people who will help see that change takes place.
This is so great to hear! Wow this is really the game changer that downtown Lansing needs. It's one of those sleeper game changers that will really help change some of the environment and have a lasting impact that will help the street and pedestrian scene overall.
I'm mixed on this. When I worked downtown I loved the ease of getting in and out of downtown compared to cities of similar sizes. However, I agree that I think it will do more good than harm. It will make the streets more comfortable as a pedestrian and hopefully encourage people to spend more time downtown.
I think a bigger impact could be made on the Oakland Saginaw and Larch Cedar corridors. Although they are State highways they do not carry the volume of traffic they once did and could carry today's traffic on two-way streets without much trouble. I am happy to see the city make these changes downtown.
I think overall good news on the conversion to two way streets. Yes a lot of these one ways pre-date the surrounding freeways. I'm probably most happy about Grand Ave being converted to two-way. Not entirely sure why, I think it just made the least sense. Will have much easier downtown and LCC access now being able to travel southbound on Grand from Saginaw and Oakland, etc. Grand is in major need of investment, especially at the south end of downtown. Actually I'd be fine with Oakland/Saginaw and Larch/Cedar being left one-way. Perhaps because they are main drags/freeway spurs in and out of town, in contrast with the relatively short downtown streets.
Much bigger than Lansing, of course, but I Google mapped Manhattan. I hadn't been there since high school 20 years ago, so I couldn't really remember. It appears the majority are 1 ways. Probably more of a necessity there due to traffic volume, but I found that interesting.
The one-way system works OK in Manhattan if you are going uptown or downtown but cross-town can be a real pain. Like, say when you come in from Laguardia you can find yourself in a taxi cab for a very long time. If I was anywhere close to my destination I would often ask the driver to let me out and I would walk the rest of the way. One of the things I love about Lansing is that I never find myself stuck in traffic inside a smelly taxi! Compared to the cities out East, Lansing does not have any real "traffic" problems and I think slowing down and humanizing these corridors would be a great improvement for the businesses and residents of the one-way streets.
These streets being converted to two-way should help make retail along them more desirable. I'm hoping to see Lansing have a more spread out area of retail, restaurants, etc. I'm happy to see this finally happening, if Lansing ever gets to the point of really needing one-way streets everywhere again it'll be a good problem to have.
As for Saginaw/Oakland and Cedar/Larch, I think it would really be pushing it to convert them to two way. They're probably too constricted in some spots to make it work, the best you can do along some stretches would be three lanes for each road which probably isn't enough. If the traffic engineers figure they can convert them to two way without causing crazy traffic problems then I'm all it. Maybe the other east-west streets would just be better used and could absorb the traffic.
Now that winter has begun in January I wonder about the city's snow plowing efforts. I often see one truck seemingly at random going down a street[ never ours! the one block of W. Hazel]. I also see the city plowing the sidewalks on the Aurelius Road overpass leading to Clemens where very few people walk while here on S. Washington where a lot of people walk the plows fill the sidewalks over the river and 496 with snow. It's just an observation but I could see a more coordinated line of plows, plowing every street in the grid of blocks, and moving on the next. Downtown they could be removing the snow altogether, and trucking it to a snowfield.
That train track bridge over the road really wreaks havoc on traffic flow. I drive this way every day for work and routinely see close calls from people using the lane furthest to the left to skirt past a couple cars and merge right before the lane ends past Pennsylvania. There are similar issues with people merging into the new lane past the support pillar. The new empty lane incentivizes people to merge from the lane to its right and its left to try and speed past traffic ahead of them.
I've been trying to think of a way to make it better but I'm at a loss. It's an active track, so you can't just remove the bridge. I also doubt you could make a new bridge without a support pillar because I guarantee those are heavy trains using that track due to it running through NW Lansing.
I guess one way you could do it would be to make the leftmost lane end at Larch, fill the lane in with grass, then make the left turn lane bump back out closer to Pennsylvania. You could also make a grassy median right after the bridge heading east to allow for traffic to sift a bit more before people start merging in the lane again. I don't know though, it's all kind of chaotic in this section of Saginaw, since you have Cedar, Larch, Pennsylvania all crossing north-south within a mile of each other.
All a pipe dream I'm sure, but I really would like Lansing to start being more proactive about traffic flow and road layout. The removal of some one-ways downtown is a good project, but I think improvements for the major trunklines should be of significant importance too. I am also glad that Lansing Township has been making small changes to traffic flow around Frandor too. It's still very deadly but ever slightly less so with changes to south Homer street near the entrance to 127.
Comments
I agree that this route seems not right, they could call this train route "The Hipster" service from fancy Ann Arbor to fancy Traverse City/Petoskey! I bet Governor Snyder would be on the first train.
This route reminds me of the roads up there, they are generally really great! All the different routes I take on State and County roads have had some or all of the route repaved in the past few years. To me, it is evident that rural and northern areas of the state benefit from the current road funding scheme over our urban centers. So I hope things will change and rail routes will include Lansing and areas where mass transit will get the most use. Also, that urban streets will be as well funded as our rural area's. I am going to vote for people who will help see that change takes place.
This is so great to hear! Wow this is really the game changer that downtown Lansing needs. It's one of those sleeper game changers that will really help change some of the environment and have a lasting impact that will help the street and pedestrian scene overall.
I'm mixed on this. When I worked downtown I loved the ease of getting in and out of downtown compared to cities of similar sizes. However, I agree that I think it will do more good than harm. It will make the streets more comfortable as a pedestrian and hopefully encourage people to spend more time downtown.
I think a bigger impact could be made on the Oakland Saginaw and Larch Cedar corridors. Although they are State highways they do not carry the volume of traffic they once did and could carry today's traffic on two-way streets without much trouble. I am happy to see the city make these changes downtown.
I think overall good news on the conversion to two way streets. Yes a lot of these one ways pre-date the surrounding freeways. I'm probably most happy about Grand Ave being converted to two-way. Not entirely sure why, I think it just made the least sense. Will have much easier downtown and LCC access now being able to travel southbound on Grand from Saginaw and Oakland, etc. Grand is in major need of investment, especially at the south end of downtown. Actually I'd be fine with Oakland/Saginaw and Larch/Cedar being left one-way. Perhaps because they are main drags/freeway spurs in and out of town, in contrast with the relatively short downtown streets.
Much bigger than Lansing, of course, but I Google mapped Manhattan. I hadn't been there since high school 20 years ago, so I couldn't really remember. It appears the majority are 1 ways. Probably more of a necessity there due to traffic volume, but I found that interesting.
The one-way system works OK in Manhattan if you are going uptown or downtown but cross-town can be a real pain. Like, say when you come in from Laguardia you can find yourself in a taxi cab for a very long time. If I was anywhere close to my destination I would often ask the driver to let me out and I would walk the rest of the way. One of the things I love about Lansing is that I never find myself stuck in traffic inside a smelly taxi! Compared to the cities out East, Lansing does not have any real "traffic" problems and I think slowing down and humanizing these corridors would be a great improvement for the businesses and residents of the one-way streets.
These streets being converted to two-way should help make retail along them more desirable. I'm hoping to see Lansing have a more spread out area of retail, restaurants, etc. I'm happy to see this finally happening, if Lansing ever gets to the point of really needing one-way streets everywhere again it'll be a good problem to have.
As for Saginaw/Oakland and Cedar/Larch, I think it would really be pushing it to convert them to two way. They're probably too constricted in some spots to make it work, the best you can do along some stretches would be three lanes for each road which probably isn't enough. If the traffic engineers figure they can convert them to two way without causing crazy traffic problems then I'm all it. Maybe the other east-west streets would just be better used and could absorb the traffic.
Now that winter has begun in January I wonder about the city's snow plowing efforts. I often see one truck seemingly at random going down a street[ never ours! the one block of W. Hazel]. I also see the city plowing the sidewalks on the Aurelius Road overpass leading to Clemens where very few people walk while here on S. Washington where a lot of people walk the plows fill the sidewalks over the river and 496 with snow. It's just an observation but I could see a more coordinated line of plows, plowing every street in the grid of blocks, and moving on the next. Downtown they could be removing the snow altogether, and trucking it to a snowfield.
Has the city ever considered making adjustments to the section of eastbound Saginaw ave between Larch and Pennsylvania?
https://goo.gl/maps/jy5PfMdKde52
That train track bridge over the road really wreaks havoc on traffic flow. I drive this way every day for work and routinely see close calls from people using the lane furthest to the left to skirt past a couple cars and merge right before the lane ends past Pennsylvania. There are similar issues with people merging into the new lane past the support pillar. The new empty lane incentivizes people to merge from the lane to its right and its left to try and speed past traffic ahead of them.
I've been trying to think of a way to make it better but I'm at a loss. It's an active track, so you can't just remove the bridge. I also doubt you could make a new bridge without a support pillar because I guarantee those are heavy trains using that track due to it running through NW Lansing.
I guess one way you could do it would be to make the leftmost lane end at Larch, fill the lane in with grass, then make the left turn lane bump back out closer to Pennsylvania. You could also make a grassy median right after the bridge heading east to allow for traffic to sift a bit more before people start merging in the lane again. I don't know though, it's all kind of chaotic in this section of Saginaw, since you have Cedar, Larch, Pennsylvania all crossing north-south within a mile of each other.
All a pipe dream I'm sure, but I really would like Lansing to start being more proactive about traffic flow and road layout. The removal of some one-ways downtown is a good project, but I think improvements for the major trunklines should be of significant importance too. I am also glad that Lansing Township has been making small changes to traffic flow around Frandor too. It's still very deadly but ever slightly less so with changes to south Homer street near the entrance to 127.