"Some Main Street merchants not buying proposal"

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"Work on downtown Main Street west of the railroad tracks will begin in February. The project entails a new streetscape to match improvements on East Main Street and aims to improve accessibility and safety at crosswalks and update signal and street lighting and landscaping."

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http://www.normantranscript.com/news/government/some-main-street-merchants-not-buying-proposal/article_b75f7d7e-8665-5fa5-b347-e94216328c7d.html

If you are familiar with this area, I don't see why it needs to change to a 2 way. I've gone down there numerous times, and I'm someone that wasn't real familiar with it before I went and I don't live in Norman, and I never had issues. I actually kind of thought it was unique and something that kind of separated it from new Norman.

I heard one proposal was to make it two lane and have extra areas on the side so people backing out could see better. That one sounds nice to me.

The only way to streetscape and give backers more visibility when going to a two way will be to one it one traffic lane in each direction. Major fail of a plan in my opinion. Better visibility while you sit forever watching oncoming traffic is not an improvement.

Another idea would be to do what I've seen more and more of: Three lanes, two for through traffic (one in each direction) with a center lane for left turns only (alleviating the issue of traffic having to stop in one direction waiting for someone to turn left due to oncoming traffic in the other). Nonetheless, I think the current one-way configuration is fine (as long as appropriate signage is posted, which there is).

On Main (and especially on Gray), the 3-lane one-way configuration we have now encourages people to drive far too fast in an area that often sees a lot of pedestrians, and has a ton of cars backing out from angled parking in situations with low/no visibility. This is even a problem at night along Main, because as the number of cars utilizing angled parking decreases drivers are encouraged to drive faster, even as the nightlife crowd is out and about downtown.

I drive both roads all the time and while the train can be a problem on Main, it's only at certain times of day. The bigger issue with Main traffic are backups at Porter, which arise as a result of the weird configuration at Main/Porter and Gray/Porter, which in turn arises from the fact that Main and Gray are each one-way. I'd be highly in favor of both the road diet and conversion to two-way with a center turn lane.

On Main (and especially on Gray), the 3-lane one-way configuration we have now encourages people to drive far too fast in an area that often sees a lot of pedestrians, and has a ton of cars backing out from angled parking in situations with low/no visibility. This is even a problem at night along Main, because as the number of cars utilizing angled parking decreases drivers are encouraged to drive faster, even as the nightlife crowd is out and about downtown.

I drive both roads all the time and while the train can be a problem on Main, it's only at certain times of day. The bigger issue with Main traffic are backups at Porter, which arise as a result of the weird configuration at Main/Porter and Gray/Porter, which in turn arises from the fact that Main and Gray are each one-way. I'd be highly in favor of both the road diet and conversion to two-way with a center turn lane.

You nailed it - and that's why I support the same changes you do.