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Started By
Message
re: Work to begin on Government Street reconfiguration on Jan 8
Posted on 11/30/17 at 8:36 am to doubleb
Posted on 11/30/17 at 8:36 am to doubleb
quote:
If they wanted to build a nice East/West avenue serving downtown why not use Convention Street or one of the lesser streets for their "experiment"? Why use one of the two more prominent streets?
North would have been perfect since it doesn't go all the way to Jefferson.
1
Posted on 11/30/17 at 8:36 am to BottomlandBrew
quote:
They also need to do roundabouts at Foster, Acadian, Park, and Jefferson.
I think at least two of those are going to happen as a separate project by the state.
They also want to install roundabouts for the ramps on I-12 at Juban in Livingston and a few other places in Central and Zachary.
This post was edited on 11/30/17 at 8:38 am
Posted on 11/30/17 at 8:38 am to tom
quote:
you'll be stuck behind a jalopy going 20-under
Look at the bright side to this. You can roll down your winders and listen to those 6x9's on the back dash go bump bump as you ride 20 under.
Posted on 11/30/17 at 8:44 am to doubleb
"Road diets" are the latest traffic management trend and you aren't alone.
They cut out lanes of car traffic and replace it with bike paths for some utopian vision of a city. Problem is, not enough people riding to replace the lost traffic capacity of course.
They cut out lanes of car traffic and replace it with bike paths for some utopian vision of a city. Problem is, not enough people riding to replace the lost traffic capacity of course.
Posted on 11/30/17 at 8:45 am to member12
The point is to take thru traffic off of Government. They don’t want people using it. Use Florida instead.
Posted on 11/30/17 at 8:45 am to 4WHLN
Florida Street and North Blvd aren't getting any modifications. Drive fast on those streets. 
Posted on 11/30/17 at 8:57 am to Teddy Ruxpin
quote:
They cut out lanes of car traffic and replace it with bike paths for some utopian vision of a city.
Supposedly a 3 lane street with center turn lane will host fewer accidents as an urban or suburban street than a 4 lane road with no turn lane with the same traffic. It seems counter productive but they have statistical evidence to back it up. A lot of cities in both the US and Canada made the same mistake Baton Rouge did in the mid 20th century by widening two lane streets to 4 lane streets without a turn lane or a center divider. The goal was to move traffic without concern of how that traffic would flow as the retail strip along the street developed, or how it would flow after bus stops were added, etc.
Most sections of Government Street have less traffic than would be required by a 4 lane road, so they have the opportunity to correct this with a center turn lane. I don't think they can do anything about Florida Street west of Foster other than discourage left turns somehow. If they
IMO in places in Ascension Parish, most of those narrow two lane secondary roads should be widened to 3 lanes with sidewalks....but they should not add any more traffic signals if they can help it. If they need more capacity, they should try to go widen to 4 lanes with a wide center median to control or limit left turns.
A road with 4 lanes and no center turn lane is only ideal in dense urban areas where there are few opportunities for left hand turns - such as the CBD. There are a lot of curb cuts and drive ways on Government Street - especially east of I-110.
This post was edited on 11/30/17 at 9:10 am
Posted on 11/30/17 at 9:04 am to member12
quote:
Supposedly a 3 lane street with center turn lane will host fewer accidents as an urban or suburban street than a 4 lane road with no turn lane with the same traffic. It seems counter productive but they have statistical evidence to back it up. A lot of cities made the same mistake Baton Rouge did in the mid 20th century by widening two lane streets to 4 lane streets without a turn lane or a center divider. The goal was to move traffic without concern of how that traffic would flow as the retail strip along the street developed, or how it would flow after bus stops were added, etc.
This. The turning lane will make all the difference. And there will be a reduction in curb cuts for streets and businesses.
It’s worked very well on a similar road in Los Angeles...which much to the chargrin of this board, has worse traffic than BR.
Posted on 11/30/17 at 9:13 am to member12
Who even drives on government? I know I'm not that brave
Posted on 11/30/17 at 9:20 am to Golfer
quote:
The turning lane will make all the difference.
The turning lane is a "suicide lane", right? Wrong?
And was the "road" in Los Angeles a state highway? A primary artery? Government Street has a traffic count of over 15,000 cars on a daily basis.
Posted on 11/30/17 at 9:21 am to member12
quote:
Supposedly a 3 lane street with center turn lane will host fewer accidents
Obviously. Hard to have an accident when you are stopped in traffic. Why don't we just make it 0 lanes and never have any wrecks at all?
Posted on 11/30/17 at 9:21 am to doubleb
As an above poster mentioned, this is becoming pretty common with inner-city streets that were four-laned back in the 50's and 60's. Traffic normally is not negatively affected (after construction) and it is much friendlier for pedestrians, bikers and commercial businesses along the route.
Posted on 11/30/17 at 9:22 am to Golfer
quote:
It’s worked very well on a similar road in Los Angeles...which much to the chargrin of this board, has worse traffic than BR.
They did this on Madison Avenue in Memphis in the Overton Square area. The bike lanes they added are useless, but the traffic flows better and the retail spaces are now in higher demand because of the increased pedestrian traffic.
I'm not exaggerating when I say that the reconfiguration of that section really changed that whole area very quickly. You can google street view the area around Madison at Cooper (and west of) in mid town Memphis and see the difference it made.
ETA: I think the street parking helped a lot as well.
This post was edited on 11/30/17 at 9:25 am
Posted on 11/30/17 at 9:24 am to member12
Well, so much for that mid city thingy going on. Bu bye.
Posted on 11/30/17 at 9:29 am to member12
This might not be terrible IF they had done what they said they would do when they pitched the project: re-routed CATS busses OFF of Government Street.
There is still a CATS stop every 50 feet. With 4 lanes, people could merge into the left lane to get around the slow/empty busses stopping for 5 minutes at a time at empty bus stops. Now, all of that traffic will have to just sit there at a standstill behind those useless, gas-guzzling hunks of metal and graft.
Also, like all roundabouts where the incoming streets have more than 2 lanes, the roundabout will be a disaster. Lobdell @ Government is one of the easiest intersections to navigate in the city, and now they're going to FUBAR it.
There is still a CATS stop every 50 feet. With 4 lanes, people could merge into the left lane to get around the slow/empty busses stopping for 5 minutes at a time at empty bus stops. Now, all of that traffic will have to just sit there at a standstill behind those useless, gas-guzzling hunks of metal and graft.
Also, like all roundabouts where the incoming streets have more than 2 lanes, the roundabout will be a disaster. Lobdell @ Government is one of the easiest intersections to navigate in the city, and now they're going to FUBAR it.
This post was edited on 11/30/17 at 9:31 am
Posted on 11/30/17 at 9:29 am to member12
quote:
Florida Street and North Blvd aren't getting any modifications. Drive fast on those streets.
Jefferson doesn't connect to either of those. That's where a large portion of the current traffic on Government goes.
Posted on 11/30/17 at 9:31 am to kingbob
quote:
Now, all of that traffic will have to just sit there at a standstill behind those useless, gas-guzzling hunks of metal and graft.
From the article:
Raiford said authorities are investigating whether any property owners might sell or donate land where buses can pull off the road to load and unload passengers.
Posted on 11/30/17 at 9:33 am to tom
quote:
Florida Street and North Blvd aren't getting any modifications. Drive fast on those streets. Jefferson doesn't connect to either of those. That's where a large portion of the current traffic on Government goes.
To get from Florida to Jefferson, one must either take the highly congested Foster to either left on College through the residential neighborhood or right on college and then left through Congested Corporate. Or, one must take the highly congested Lobdell, made so by the idiotic light cycle at Lobdell and Jefferson that only allows like 10 cars MAX onto Jefferson from Lobdell at rush hour.
Posted on 11/30/17 at 9:34 am to LakeViewLSU
quote:
The point is to take thru traffic off of Government. They don’t want people using it. Use Florida instead.
THIS!!
Or use North like I have been for years.
Posted on 11/30/17 at 9:34 am to dewster
quote:
Raiford said authorities are investigating whether any property owners might sell or donate land where buses can pull off the road to load and unload passengers.
Good luck with that. Where the traffic is the worst (between Edison and Jefferson), most of the buildings are practically right up to the street. There is little to no room to pull over busses without tearing down entire city blocks or eliminating essentially all off-street parking from entire shopping centers.
This is a very very very bad idea.
This post was edited on 11/30/17 at 9:36 am
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