9th Street Converted to 2-Way, 8th to be Closed During Tower Construction

On Friday the 24th those not on Jim Cloar’s email list discovered that 9th street — long a one-way northbound street — had suddenly and seemingly without notice been changed to two-way traffic where it was once one-way: from Olive north to Washington Ave. Downtown Partnership’s Cloar explains in his update to members on August 17, 2007:

As noted previously, 8th Street is scheduled to be closed curb to curb from Locust to St. Charles, possibly beginning as early as next Monday. The east- side sidewalk, next to US Bank, will remain open. The closure is necessitated by the impending start of construction on the Roberts Tower.

Also note that 9th Street will soon be converted to two-way from Olive north to Washington (it is already two-way extending north of Washington). This will help relieve traffic concerns prompted by the 8th Street closure and will serve as a test for future possible conversion of other one-way streets to two-way.

I’m a bit torn on this one. I don’t see why it is necessary to close 8th entirely for construction but I am glad to see 9th as two-way. I also don’t see why such information is limited to those on the member roles of the partnership. Did Ald. Young alert her constituents? Did the city and/or partnership place a public notice in something like the Washington Ave Greensheet? What about some signs indicating a change would take place? At least when Locust was changed from one-way to two-way they put up some extra signs for a few weeks afterwards to remind those that are not yet used to the change. The city did recently issue a press release about a temporary closing of the Compton Viaduct (read) but did not do the same for this.

A downtown resident living in a loft on 9th emailed me wondering if I know what was going on. I talked to others that should be in the know and they were unaware of the change. I even talked with three of the partnership’s own guides and they weren’t aware why the change — one wasn’t aware the change had happened. It was not until I looked for Cloar’s weekly update that I found the answer.

I also reviewed the public presentation from the 2005 CBD traffic study (2.8mb PDF) which indicated that 9th street was “inappropriate” for conversion to 2-way traffic. To my knowledge, nothing has changed and no new study has been performed. I don’t believe much, if any, work has been done relative to the recommendations in that study but a developer seeking to use the street has prompted quick action. It is possible that the Roberts brothers and/or the downtown partnership are paying for these changes out of pocket rather than through the use of limited city funds.

Rather than start right in the thick of things I thought we’d start a few blocks to the south of the area in question, Ninth & Clark (google map)

This street is feed by an exit from Hwy 40/I-64 as well as the east-west Clark. A single northbound lane also comes out of the Cupple Station area. The amount of lanes/paving to the amount of traffic volume always seems excessive except on those rare occasions of a big event — baseball traffic doesn’t even seem to be an issue as drivers exiting the highway are able to enter the stadium west garage just past the off ramp.

Looking north on 9th from Walnut we see four open lanes — on-street parking under the Bank of America building is not permitted. The previous block is just as wide but does allow parking on the west side of the street. OK, onward north.

A block north, at Market, the space expands with two blocks of the Gateway Mall that are to be gifted with public art. AT&T’s buildings remain void of anything interesting.

Getting a little closer we see that we’ve gone from four lanes down to two, with on-street parking permitted on these two blocks at this time. This parking may go away once the art goes it, if so I hope the pavement width is reduced.

At the AT&T buildings we see a ramp down to a loading dock on the left. Pedestrians are detoured to the left upper floors of the building. While the previous block had two through lanes and two parking lanes, here in this block we have three through lanes and a single parking lane. I’m not sure of the reasoning for opening up one additional lane here over the previous block — my guess it is more about banning parking than providing another lane for traffic flow.

Just past Pine St we see how a stripe has been added on the left to cause traffic to merge to the right. One sign, in the far right just out of camera range, was added to alert drivers to merge right. I’m not sure how effective it will be to have a sign on the far right to tell drivers in the left lane their lane is ending. Would have made more sense to me to install that sign on the left side of the road, or better yet have a second sign so that drivers in both lanes would know what is happening.

So let’s recap. In the five blocks since exiting the highway we’ve had three lanes plus parking on the left, then four lanes no parking, then down to two lanes with parking on both sides, three lanes with parking on the right and now, between Pine and Olive, two lanes narrowing to one with parking on both sides. This would seem to me to be a tad confusing to drivers and potentially add to their poor perception of downtown. But hey, what do I know — I’m not a traffic engineer.

While we are here on this particular block I wanted to point out a few things. Bicycles and scooters are pretty common on this block — an excellent sign of life! However, the city does not provide any form of bike parking in the public right of way. A city that wants to be more friendly to cyclists provides bike racks in well used areas. Also note the police car parked in front of the fire hydrant.

Turning back north we see the parking on the left is designated for police vehicles only. I’m going to assume this was full when the officer parked the patrol car in front of the hydrant just behind me in this view. This would be a good place to provide angled parking for the officers using the sub-station on the left — otherwise the pavement is just going to waste.

If it were me, I’d make this block 2-way as well — letting Pine server as the changing point. Those headed northbound could choose to go straight or left on Pine (it is currently westbound one-way). Those heading south have the option to turn eastbound at Olive as currently configured but those wanting to go westbound could do so on Pine. From the looks of some newly installed signals at the Pine intersection it appears the city might be planning to do this very thing.

Walking up to Olive and looking back we can see that “do not enter” signs have been added to alert new southbound drivers they must turn. A couple of other signs do indicate no right turn — forcing them to turn left onto the eastbound one-way Olive.

On the opposite side of ninth, looking north (above), we see that the pedestrian signal has simply been covered up. Pedestrians walking both north and south at this intersection are left unsure of what to do. I’m assuming this is very temporary and will soon be corrected.

Once safely across the intersection we can look back to the west, at the new Ninth street garage that replaced the historic marble-clad Century building. See anything wrong? The issue here is that Olive is narrower in front of the Old Post Office by one lane — this was done in the 1970s by removing the parking lane from the front of the building. I don’t have too much of an issue with the loss of that parking lane. What I do have an issue with is the lack of thought given to pedestrian flow. The normal path for someone walking along Olive is not out at this far edge — they are back in line with all the other sidewalks. Those using wheechairs or pushing a baby stroller must go out of their way and end up nearly in the intersection. This could have, and should have, been avoided.

Both of these corners were completely redone by the same developer — Desco (the ones that brought us Loughborough Commons). Ninth was closed during the projects (Old Post Office & Garage) and this could have easily been coordinated. In the near side of the above picture a ramp for southbound pedestrians crossing Olive could have been provided in the general area that it is while a second ramp could have been provided along ninth to keep pedestrians in a more normal flow. Even worse is the cross-slope on the sidewalk next to the garage — even from the above image you can see the excessive slope away from the building — a slope that could send a wheelchair user into the parked cars. But then again Desco doesn’t quite get the point behind making things accessible to those not driving cars.

Continuing north we get to Locust. In the block of the garage and the Old Post Office what was striped briefly at four lanes is now three: a northbound parking lane for marshalls only (a court is in the Old Post Office), a really wide single northbound lane and a normal southbound lane.

Continuing up 9th we can see one remaining block of St. Charles St., labeled Mayfair Plaza on Google Maps.

A bit further north we look back toward the south. You can see the yellow line dividing the opposite directions of traffic. Parking is allowed briefly on one side of the street. There is a constant flow of pedestrians and their luggage back and forth from the two hotels and the parking garage. However, no ADA ramp is provided immediately outside the parking garage pedestrian entrance nor is any sort of crosswalk designation. Does this constitute illegal jaywalking on the part of these pedestrians?

As the former one-way 9th approaches Washington Ave we can see how the old stripes and arrows were blacked out and the new stripes painted. Signs at the end of the street now indicate that traffic is two way. Continuing north 9th remains 2-way for a couple of blocks (Convention Plaza, formerly Delmar) but it resumes one-way northbound beyond that.

At the moment at least westbound drivers on Washington Ave are not given a left-turn lane onto the new southbound lane of 9th. This might be something that is planned. Obviously drivers in the opposite direction can turn right onto southbound 9th. Those westbound drivers seeking to head south in the CBD can still turn left a block earlier at 8th.

Above is 8th Street southbound from Washington Ave. The convention center entrance is directly behind me. St. Charles street (aka Mayfair Plaza) is just beyond the semi to the right. 8th will be closed at St. Charles — forcing all drivers to make a right turn. Four lanes, no parking permitted.

St. Charles Street, at one time, continued all the way to the river but over the years has been eroded. It has for the most part been sort of a glorified alley but as you can see from the Mayfair hotel on the left it did have its share of nice entries. Ahead at the plain brick wall and parking garage is 9th Street. As you can see, this basically a single lane of traffic heading from 8th to 9th.

Above is the specific area of 8th to be closed. At left is the US Bank and the sidewalk that is to remain open. At far right is the Mayfair. The opening to the right is where the new tower is to be built as well as the new plaza (more on that later). Then we have the renovated Old Post Office with the under renovation Arcade-Wright in the background. The Arcade has two of the four lanes closed between Olive & West Pine but traffic can still get through. In recent years I’ve only known one street to be closed during construction — 9th between Olive and Locust when both the Old Post Office and the Ninth Street Garage that replaced the National Register listed Century building were being done at the same time.

Above is the site of the new Roberts Tower.

Next to that site, covering half that block, is the site of the new plaza. Apparently the Gateway Mall, Arch grounds and numerous building plazas are not enough open space for downtown and more must be built. Dead center is the former Board of Education building now apartments called Roberts something. To the north of that is the convention hotel parking garage and to the south the 9th street garage.

Still here? It will be interesting to see how this change in traffic flow goes and if additional changes will be made to some of the transition areas and if pedestrian signals will improve or simply remain covered throughout the duration.