TRAVERSE CITY — Two years and more than $200,000 later, questions remain over how much Traverse City officials really know about two-way traffic on one of its downtown streets.
City commissioners raised some of those questions Monday when city Downtown Development CEO Harry Burkholder presented some findings of data aimed at answering whether opening blocks of State Street to two-way traffic made it any safer for drivers, bicyclists and other users. He also presented the history of the pilot project, which began in late 2022 after city leaders approved a two-year trial run.
That trial was meant to expire in October, and now DDA officials are asking for two more years to gather more data, Burkholder said.
“After a lot of discussions internally with staff and within the DDA, I think there’s movement to extend the pilot and explore the possibility of additional modifications and implementations,” he said.
Some findings so far looked encouraging, with average vehicle speeds dropping from 22 mph for one-way only to 20 mph, according to data Burkholder presented. The lower average was tempered by the more than doubling of traffic volume, from 4,081 per day in 2022 to 8,302 in 2023.
Pedestrian and bicyclist usage held steady, although the times when people on bikes rode on State Street shifted to morning and evening peaks, Burkholder said.
Parking usage along State Street also picked up, at 18 percent in summer 2023 over summer 2022. The uptick for the same time period on Front Street was much smaller.
One reason to extend the pilot would be to gather data in conditions not impacted by major construction, Burkholder said. For summer 2023, a few major bridges in the downtown were closed for reconstruction, and in 2024, the second phase of Michigan Department of Transportation’s project on Grandview Parkway prompted lots of drivers to use State and Front streets instead.
That left no doubt for Commissioner Heather Shaw that the data gathered over both years was skewed, she said. While she favored continuing the pilot for two more years, she didn’t support the DDA spending any money on the second reason Burkholder stated for carrying on: studying whether to convert Front Street to two-way traffic as well.
Burkholder said the potential change would better connect downtown streets with the surrounding grid, and fix an imbalance created by Front and State streets’ combined three westbound lanes, plus State Street’s one eastbound lane. Several more steps would be needed, from traffic modeling to cost estimates to, ultimately, asking city commissioners to approve a traffic order.
Mayor Amy Shamroe emphasized that last point, seeking to tamp down concerns that city leaders would switch Front Street’s one-way stretch to two-way on a whim. It would also be a completely separate decision from extending the State Street pilot, she stressed.
But Shaw said the idea seemed to run counter to the overarching goal in converting State Street back to two-way traffic, as it was until 1967: traffic planning emphasizing people going “to” downtown, as opposed to quickly passing “through” downtown. She noted meeting materials already holding out Front Street as a model of walkability, pedestrian-friendly character and community vitality.
“So what are you trying to fix? The intense pedestrian usage downtown for me says, big red flag for complicating traffic patterns,” she said. “Traffic is already slow and it will become painful if people are waiting on parallel parking on two-way street — talk about aggressive, oh my gosh.”
Shaw referred to Burkholder’s earlier comments about one issue raised during the two-year trial: a lack of left-turn lanes on State frustrating drivers and leading to more aggressive behavior by drivers.
Left-turn issues might be addressed by road markings or, possibly, traffic signal changes, Burkholder said. While he later added he and others working on the pilot wanted to study their options in the start of 2025 before taking action, Shaw urged trying something with road markings as a low-cost effort.
Shaw wasn’t the only one to question how significant the data gathered over two years really was. Commissioner Mitch Treadwell said a 2-mph drop seemed statistically insignificant, while Commissioner Tim Werner said the data was “inconclusive at best.”
Werner said he didn’t support carrying on the pilot or spending more money on it, questioning why the DDA spent what Burkholder said was roughly $212,000 with not much to show for it.
He pointed to November’s election results — when city voters agreed to amend the city charter to require an election to approve, amend or extend any new tax increment finance plan, including those the DDA oversees — as a reaction to the DDA wasting the community’s money.
“The DDA is seen as an entity that has more money than they know what to do with and they’re looking for projects,” he said. “Here’s a project that really doesn’t need to be done and certainly doesn’t need to be continued, so it’s just digging the hole deeper for the DDA.”
Burkholder told commissioners the DDA, working with firm Progressive AE, collected data on the pilot as agreed when commissioners advanced it in 2022. He also said the $125,000 spent to make actual physical changes wasn’t a big investment, compared to the resulting traffic shifts.
Shamroe echoed Burkholder in noting there probably won’t be a “normal” year for gathering data without any outside events affecting the numbers. While commissioners will decide the fate of the State Street experiment at a future meeting, she agreed with Burkholder that any extension should be limited to two years — and no more.
“I don’t feel like either of these bodies (the DDA and city commission) are looking at a way to kick the can down the road for five more years,” she said.