By Teri Carnicelli

    Phoenix’s Street Transportation Department has recommended to the City Council that the reverse lanes on 7th Street and 7th Avenue be left as is, but council members were not ready to let the issue drop at a June 9 meeting.

    Department officials cited various reasons to leave the streets alone, including their heavy use and accident rates that they said were no greater than on adjacent arterial streets. But the biggest factor of all: cost.

    The city is facing a huge financial deficit and simply doesn’t have the money to either eliminate or improve the reverse lanes at this time, pointed out John Siefert, assistant Street Transportation director.

    But with a hopeful eye toward the city’s financial future and a need to find the best compromise solution for all stakeholders involved, the City Council voted to create a citizens advisory committee made up of business and residential representatives from the areas alongside, and directly adjacent to, these active commuter streets.

 

“There has to be an answer somewhere in the middle that can accommodate commuters and those that live in the central core who need quality of life,” said Councilman Tom Simplot, who represents District 4—which includes the most heavily traveled portion of 7th Avenue.

    It was Simplot who suggested creating the citizens ad hoc committee to review the studies, look at the recommended options, perhaps come up with new options, and make recommendations back to the see before the end of the calendar year.

Study results

    In October of last year the City Council directed the Street Transportation Department to do some research on the two reverse lanes with an eye toward facilitating efficient traffic flow in the city while being mindful of safety issues.

    The two streets are considered arterials, meaning their purpose is to serve as major thoroughfares that carry huge traffic loads. The 7th Avenue reverse lane, which spans six miles from McDowell Road to Northern Avenue, was implemented in 1979. The 7th Street reverse lane, which spans seven miles from McDowell Road to Dunlap Avenue, was implemented in 1982.

    The department studied crash rates, lane utilization, capacity analyses, cut-through traffic and operational alternatives. The city also contracted with ASU College of Design–Phoenix Urban Research Laboratory (PURL) to conduct a quality of life analysis of the reverse lanes. What that amounted to was polling neighbors and business owners on and around each of the two streets, asking about safety, speed, convenience, neighborhood traffic impacts, and business access impacts.

    The PURL study concluded that residents felt there was driver confusion because of poor or sporadic signage, that access to business was greatly inhibited during reverse lane times, and that stakeholders who live and work along or adjacent to these reverse lanes feel unsafe.

    However, drivers who use the reverse lanes regularly primarily come from north of Glendale Avenue, according to the city. The majority of residents in that area, including Sunnyslope and Moon Valley, who were contacted for the PURL study said they did not want to see the reverse lanes removed but would like to see more enforcement via the Phoenix Police Department and more left-turn opportunities.

    “John C. Lincoln North Mountain Hospital and the Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Resort are major employers [north of Glendale Avenue] who have concerns about the elimination of these reverse lanes,” said Jim Mapstead, president of the Sunnyslope Village Alliance and a business owner in the Sunnyslope community. “Please consider the rest of the business owners in the community when making any decision about these roadways.”

Safety concerns

    During the school year, Marc Scher, who lives a stone’s throw from 7th Street, takes his children to Madison Simis every weekday morning. In order to do that, he has to travel south on 7th Street and make a left turn onto State Street, which is not illegal, but is certainly stressful, he says.

    “There is a person right on my bumper honking at me every morning,” he told the City Council. “I don’t feel safe.”

    While preliminary results of the Street Transportation Department’s study at first indicated a higher rate of vehicle crashes and car-pedestrian accidents on the reverse lanes than surrounding arterials such as 12th and 16th streets on the east side and 15th and 19th avenues on the west side, city officials later stated that their assumption was incorrect. Siefert told City Council members at the June 9 meeting that the number of accidents on 7th Avenue and 7th Street were statistically about the same as on other adjacent arterial streets.

    That announcement met with a lot of skepticism from residents and business owners who attended the meeting to voice their support for either eliminating the reverse lanes or making solid efforts to greatly improve signage, access and safety.

    Siefert told the council that to eliminate the lanes, which each carries a substantial amount of commuter traffic during rush hours, would mean a 25 percent loss of capacity for northbound traffic and a 33 percent loss of capacity for southbound drivers. It also would not quite double the commute time on each roadway. As a result, neighborhood cut-through traffic rates may shift, he warned.

    But that inconvenience of longer commute times and possible increased cut-through traffic has to be weighed against safety and access issues, some argue.

    “As a business owner, it’s nearly impossible for people to get in and out of my business during reverse lane hours,” said Theresa Stickler, owner of Melrose Pharmacy located on 7th Avenue. She added, “That also holds true for the nearby Copper Star Coffee in the morning. We need to think about the survival of these small businesses.”

    Stickler and others who spoke at the meeting said that, should the reverse lanes remain, the signage greatly needed improvement, whether by adding flashers or lighted indicators, or including bi-lingual signs as well for an increasing Hispanic population.

    “At some point, we have to come up with a policy decision that takes us into the future,” said Mayor Phil Gordon. “We’re going to have to deal with this and make some tough decisions.” He hopes the citizens committee can reach some kind of consensus decision so that the city can in effect support what a cross-section of the community is willing to support as well.