Oct. 7 – Portland City Council will vote Monday on whether to convert state and main streets to two-way streets.
Both streets, which divide the peninsula in two, have had only one-way traffic for decades. City officials have said the current design makes the streets riskier for cyclists and pedestrians. It can also lead to car accidents and speeding tickets.
“Everything I’ve heard from staff and constituents is that this will slow things down a little bit and make it safer for pedestrians,” said Councilman Roberto Rodriguez, who plans to support the proposal.
In an interview last month, a transportation systems engineer with the city’s Department of Public Works said there have been at least 45 accidents involving pedestrians and at least 35 involving bicycles — injuring people — on the two streets in the past decade. .
The City Council vote on Monday will simply be about whether to support the change so the city can enter into an agreement with the Maine Department of Transportation to get the project started. No expenditure is yet required from the city.
If Council approves the resolution, the project would move to designing a new two-way traffic plan. Part of that discussion would include whether to create separate bike lanes.
Councilor Anna Bullett said she would like to keep the cycling infrastructure, but ultimately supports the plan.
“I am also concerned about preserving the historic trees on those streets. I am confident that these are priorities for staff as well,” Bullett said.
She said it is important to have two-way traffic because it streamlines emergency transportation and can make it easier to carry out roadworks without major consequences.
Other council members did not respond to questions about whether or not they support the idea.
The proposal comes to Council from its Sustainability and Transportation Committee, chaired by Councilor Regina Phillips. The committee has met twice to discuss the proposal, and the city’s Public Works Department also hosted a public meeting about it last month.
At that meeting, most people expressed support for the plan and said they hoped changing the streets from two lanes of one-way traffic to one lane in each direction would help slow cars and make intersections safer.
At a meeting last month, city staff explained that the state has already committed to replacing the signals up and down both roads, and that the city could pursue a bi-agency plan to integrate that work with redesigning traffic flows. Staff have said the state has budgeted about $5 million for the project, and the city could match another 25% to 30% — about $1.5 million to $1.75 million — to support the proposed traffic changes .
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