Brendan McLaughlin

The Bay Area has some wicked roads. Waters Avenue and U.S. 19 in Pinellas are among the most dangerous in the state. Traffic during rush hour can be epic. But there are four thoroughfares in Tampa that seem to work really well. They are Tampa Ave, Florida Ave, Howard Ave and Armenia Ave.  What they all have in common (aside from running north/south)  is that they are all on-way streets.  In the interest of making downtown Tampa more pedestrian friendly, there is discussion over whether those three lane roads should be converted to two lanes with room for a center turn lane and possibly parallel or diagonal street parking.  Geez, I hope they don't actually do it.

As a downtown area resident, I share the vision of a groovy, urban utopia on the river, but screwing up a good thing won't get us there. Florida and Tampa Avenues from MLK south are luxuriously uncrowded. If even a quarter of the planned condo units downtown actually sell, we're going to need that extra capacity. And imagine getting down to Hyde Park without the three lanes of Armenia. 

 Some business owners believe slower auto traffic will encourage pedestrian traffic that will walk into their stores. But trapping people in a traffic jam outside your flower shop isn't a very nice way to build a business.  And it seems to me cities like San Francisco and New York do pretty well with one-way streets.  Rich Shopes of the Trib writes about the plan.