A road conversion project won’t make it quicker to get downtown, but hopefully it will make it easier to reach certain destinations.
Q. Could you provide a follow-up about what would be the benefits of major changes regarding Fairfield, Ewing, and Main Street, and why they would supposedly outweigh the costs and temporary inconveniences? – David McClamrock, Fort Wayne
A. I absolutely can, David, and must admit I was wondering about the changes myself.
For those unfamiliar with the proposal, the city is looking to convert Ewing Street and Fairfield Avenue to two-way traffic downtown between Superior and Baker streets. Ewing currently goes north while Fairfield heads south.
Just this week an analysis showed that converting the streets to two-way wouldn’t create massive problems at major intersections, but it would add time to people’s travels on those roads.
For example, the delay on Fairfield at Jefferson Boulevard would jump from about 11 seconds to 20 seconds during morning and evening rush hours. Delays at Fairfield at Main Street would go from 20 seconds to 44 seconds during the evening rush hour, although that would be mitigated some if the city converted Main to a three-lane road with a middle turn lane.
The question then becomes why make such a drastic change if it’s only going to take longer to get through downtown.
Shan Gunawardena, city traffic engineer, said the point of the change is not to improve traffic congestion but to make the land surrounding those streets more enticing to development. The city owns much of the land across Ewing Street from Parkview Field, but currently the only way to get to those properties is to go past them on Fairfield, turn on Baker Street and then head north on Ewing.
By making the two roads two-way, Fairfield would likely become the main artery for through traffic, while Ewing would become more of a commercial route for local destinations. The city’s plan would also convert the small eastbound section of Baker to two-way.
According to the traffic study, “Converting the roadways from one-way to two-way corridors is a viable option to improving accessibility and traffic flow in this area of the downtown.”
Two-way streets were also touted for being easier to use by out-of-town guests and making the areas more pedestrian friendly. The city has paid for a separate study to examine installing a roundabout at the intersection of Fairfield, Ewing and Superior Street. That study will be done in the spring, at which point the city will examine ways to finance the project.
Radio Sage
This week’s audio question comes from J. Bielko of Fort Wayne who asked about the intersection of St. Joe Road and St. Joe Center Road. The segment originally aired Friday afternoon on WOWO and can be found online at www.journalgazette.net/roadsage.
