“Community Columnist” Michael Schrader

(About changing traffic configurations)

Written 17 July 2015

Haste makes waste. The intersection of Water and Military is the perfect example. The city, not wanting to wait for the state to complete its assessment of the parking and traffic flow through the intersection, decided to, at taxpayer expense, unilaterally change it. The city’s solution has resulted in unforeseen problems, and ultimately it will be up to the state, to the tune of almost $500 thousand, to fix it. However, in the ongoing discussion of what to do to the intersection, the focus has been what it will cost to fix it, and not the taxpayer dollars wasted in impatiently implementing a non-solution.

According to my understanding of the situation, the city requested that the state change the east leg of the intersection from two-way to one-way eastbound to create additional parking by changing the parallel parking to angle. As Military is an MDOT highway, the state would have to approve any changes to its intersections. The state responded that it would have to do a study, and that the estimated cost of the study and any changes would be in the area of $1 million. Not wanting to wait for a proper study, the city made the east leg one leg westbound and changed the parallel parking to angle, adding a handful of spaces.

In its zeal to placate whatever interests were insisting on adding some parking spaces, the city created some problems. First, they made Water Street more dangerous. There have been numerous studies that have concluded that streets with angle parking have more crashes and more pedestrian-vehicle and bicycle-vehicle conflicts than ones with parallel parking. These studies show that conversion from angle parking to parallel makes streets safer for pedestrians, bicycles, and vehicles. Why? Visibility and sight lines. Angle parking obstructs sight lines and reduces visibilities. Also, vehicles pulling into the traffic stream from angled parking are backing into the traffic stream, while vehicles pulling into the traffic stream from parallel parking are moving forward in the same direction. Second, the city made the waterfront, including the Great Lakes Maritime Museum, less accessible to Military Street. Before the change, a person could access the waterfront by using Water, which leads directly there. After the change, a person now has to use Pine and Fourth to get to Water, and then follow Water. The harder it is for motorists, especially tourists, to get from Military to the waterfront, the less likely they will go there. It is even more challenging for those towing boats to the marina. By acting hastily, the city made things worse for the creation of a handful of parking spaces.

Now it is back to MDOT. The latest plan is to make Water one-way eastbound towards the waterfront, and to allow left turns from Military onto Water. The cost of this latest plan is the almost $500 thousand. Why so expensive? Many have suggested it is as simple as changing signs. No, it isn’t. Military is only four lanes wide, two lanes in each direction. How will left turns be accommodated? It isn’t practical to allow them to back up traffic across the lift bridge. A parking lane could be removed, and the lanes shifted to allow a left turn lane, but then that would kind of defeat the whole purpose of trying to increase parking spaces. One lane could be the left lane, and one the through lane, but that would limit the amount of traffic downtown, and that would not be acceptable. The signals could be programmed to operate like those at Tenth and Lapeer, and anyone familiar with that intersection knows how wonderful it is. In order to do it properly, right-of-way will need to be acquired, and unless property owners are willing to give MDOT their property without compensation, it will cost several hundred thousand.

MDOT could always decommission the highway and give it to the city, and let the city deal with it. Sometimes it is better just to have patience. It can definitely be less wasteful.

Back to "The Fine Print" Index