I was at the hearing. Great result.

I would estimate 80 percent of the traffic on St. Helens travels southbound. This configuration will allow people to continue to take the shortest route into downtown as they do now. The ultimate question was whether downtown needed a road to take people into downtown or a road to take people out of downtown.

Councilmember Bill Evans indicated at an earlier hearing that St. Helens has been the traditional “entrance to the downtown.”

Staff introduced two different southbound options. One was the layout shown on the city web page (option 2A) and the other showed the southbound direction with additional parking. The park like areas at the end of St. Helens at the intersection of Market were the same on both but option 2A had “traffic calming” devices in the middle of St. Helens and a walkway and had 9 less on-street parking spaces than option 2B.

On-street parking is generally recognized as “gold” by urban planners.

Its nice to see they preserved as much as they could. However, the one-way direction will still allow the park like area at the intersection of St. Helens and Market.

People really fire down it. If traffic went the other way, that wouldn’t be a problem…but I’m curious if this was part of the discussion?

The traffic flow issues certainly were a large part of the on-going discussion.

The northbound option would have certainly guaranteed the streets would be clear of traffic. However, the initial issue was: what goal are we trying to accomplish with the street pattern?

Clearing downtown streets of traffic quickly turns out to be a low priority. Downtown Tacoma already empties as fast as any city I have seen.

The benefit of the southbound direction became pretty clear when we looked at which direction would be more inviting to visitors and benefit downtown businesses.

In the end, not much is going to change. With angle parking on both sides of the road, I don’t think people are going to travel very fast down St. Helens.

St. Helens is functionally a one way street already, because of the nature of the traffic flow and the direction of the parking stalls. Some traffic does enter St. Helens from 9th but the bulk of it comes from the north rather than the south. I live on this particular block so I am pretty familiar with how the traffic works here. The problem is the Bostwick building, not so much the building but the intersection. It is confusing to many drivers not familiar with the area, which is quite a few because of the transients that frequent the area for theater or shopping. Making St. Helens strictly one way will require some very explicit signage in order to prevent wrong way traffic on St. Helens. I hate to say it but if St. Helens becomes one way I would expect the accident rate to go up and traffic flow to be slowed down on 9th because of the hesitation and confusion of the parties attempting to turn onto St. Helens from 9th.

Lots of short comments rolled together…

One-way directions will mean higher speeds as there will be less congestion. If you think people fly down this now, just wait. (Traffic calming devices are great but they are nothing compared to good old congestion.)

Getting to City Hall, and its abundance of short term parking will become more difficult with only around the block access from the nearest off-ramps and the main commercial district. This could increase surrounding congestion due to City Hall regulars.

Back-in angle parking is safer than “standard” angle parking. A recent study in Seattle showed a reduction in accident rates by about 1/3. This is because of the greater visibility people leaving the parking spaces have. It also guides the people leaving the cars to the curb by using the open car doors to block access to the drive lane.

Back in angle parking is faster to use because of the increased driver visibility. (When in reverse, the car is moving into a controlled space as oppossed to blindly navigating traffic.) Most objections to it are because many people find reverse unnatural in tight situations.

As a fellow bicyclist, I’m with Jamie — St. Helens is the best bike route through that part of town right now. (But don’t get me started on Tacoma’s lack of decent bike lanes/routes — it’s only OK right now because downtown is still sufficiently depressed to have pretty light car traffic.)

So, any word on a change to Broadway from one way to two way?

Yes. Fortunately, this issue was non-controversial. Broadway will fortunately turn into a two way street.

Okay, pardon the vision a bit here, but I wanted to share. Just a remember that through cvehicles going either direction can always go to the light at 9th and Market if St. Helens is too congested.

This portion of St. Helens is generating quite a bit of small scale commercial along its frontage. This commercial combined with the offices and residences is starting to produce some life on the street. I believe this life can be encouraged by prioritizing pedestrian access.

This summer I hope to see a fair amount of spill over from the farmers market into the St. Helens shops. Over time, I would love to see most of the parking disappear along this road and a more inviting non-vehicular environment developed. (Benches, landscape strips, bike racks, etc.)

Is this area ready for this yet? Nope. Our center is still too car dependent. Perhaps after a public garage in place of the parking lot on Market and another 1,000 residences. However, I would hate for everyone to become accustomed to this road as a through route as that would limit the creative options in another 10 years.

Thought I’d toss into the mix an article discussing the current urban planning trend towards turning one-way roads BACK to two-way roads.

Yep. You are right. Most cities including Tacoma made the mistake of having too many one way roads with a fixation on “moving traffic” rather than economic revitalization.

It was not too long ago that 13th had three lanes down the hill one way creating a intercity freeway. Dangerous street to cross.

The downtown merchants split between two way and one way south for St. Helens. It could have stayed two way and I wouldn’t have minded.

However, it is a very narrow road and most of the current traffic travels southbound on it so it won’t be much of a change.

David’s thought is intriguing, though…what if it were “no-way”? That could be sort of fun…

Before my time in Tacoma. However, I heard they tried that on Broadway in front of the Tacoma Financial Center with disasterous results.

The Broadway experiment did not have the street presence necessary to even consider success. St. Helens wouldn’t either at this point. (Density changes the discussion.)

Right now the city should be avoiding giving more priority to the cars. I think a one-way road would give that priority by making it a primary access not just into town but also to the 9th St. entrance of 705 – for a quick escape from downtown.

(13th St. had become an extended on ramp for 705 with all traffic heading one-way downhill to the entrance and the lights timed so you could go from Sprague to 705 without stopping.)