re: BusinessReport: Baton Rouge needs dramatic change to keep pace with global landscape

quote:

---

Choking down a major surface street to 2 lanes is a stupid fricking idea

---

The road diet plan actually makes perfect sense for Government Street.

Urban two lane roads with a continuous center turn lanes actually flow better than a 4 lane undivided street with no center turn lane. And they do so with fewer accidents. This is actually one of those things that are common knowledge among planners and traffic engineers, but seem counter-intuitive to others.

In the mid 20th century, a lot of cities and suburbs have made the mistake of widening two lane roads to 4 lane roads without a median or center turn lane. They did this as a response to traffic increases but with cost or space constraints. In many cases, they'd have been better off simply adding a continuous center turn lane or a divider to restrict left turns.