I read that they want to discourage downtown workers that, “rush into (downtown) and then flee once the workday is done.” It appears that they want to trap the workers in downtown with more stop signs and slower traffic.

With the same move, they will further discourage those of us who do not work downtown from ever coming into downtown. Of course, it will be hard for me to come downtown any less than I already do.

Has it ever occurred to City Council that they could make downtown an attractive and inviting place to go with ample, free parking and smooth traffic flow in and out of the downtown area?

The city is trying to be like an old 80 year woman who puts lipstick and a bikini on and tries to relive her teenage years. The time has long past for the downtown area exciting years just the same as it did for that old woman.

Stop signs instead of stoplights? If they want to slow traffic down even more, that would do it. It would just back things up during rush hour. Ever been on Boyson Road between 4 and 5 p.m.? Do you love the way traffic backs up for a half mile at the 4-way stop in Hiawatha?

The current stoplights are bad enough, as they are 1) not timed correctly, so you get to stop at every stoplight, and spend inordinate amounts of time just sitting, and 2) have turn arrows that are unrelated to any presence of cars. So drivers can sit at a stoplight and wait while non-existent cars turn left.

Yeah, if you want people to avoid the area more than they do now, that would do it.

“turn the downtown into a seven-day-a-week, 24-hour-a-day neighborhood”

I truly can’t believe we spent good money on this “consultant”. Even downtown Chicago is a ghost once the bars close down. It would take private funds to create an entertainment venue that might draw attention from the community to support a 24/7 establishment. Face it, we don’t have the population and with the current spending of the city council we will soon not have enough money. They may want to check the ventilation in the room they meet in, cause I think they’re a little short of oxygen.

This is a really bad idea. The closing of 2nd Ave. has, in my opinion, increased traffic on 1st Ave. I think more people will use 1st Ave to avoid the 4-way stops. The way to get people to use downtown is for the merchants to give us a reason to go there. Right now there are some wonderful eating places and two beautiful theaters but little else. Traffic obstruction is not going to encourage me to visit neither a vacate building nor office building. Please, just leave the streets one way with stop lights.

Absurd! The downtown is something to pass through as quickly as possible. The trains are bad enough, but throw 4-way stops into the mess !!! You have got to be kidding. One writer said downtown is an actice part of our city—not sure what world he lives in.

By his own admission, the man who recommended this, doesn’t know what he is talking about! At least the traffic lights do what they are suppose to do and what they cost us is minimal compared to the hair brained consultants we keep hiring. If you wanted to move traffic on two way streets, you already eliminated the prime street it might have worked with, 2nd Avenue. Pushing traffic to two way on the streets further towards 8th Avenue is going to create havac in the neighborhoods where streets are narrow and one way works best. Lets face it, the more walls they build around the “Ivory Tower” the fewer ways into and out of the center of the city there will be. They cut off 1st street with the court house, they plugged a street behind the old bus depot, they corked up the street that used to run under the Five seasons Center and then they plunked a building down in the middle of 2nd Avenue. I live walking distance to the downtown, I wouldn’t go there on a bet, mostly because it is over priced, Even for low cost events, trying to find a place to park makes it pricier than many other locations. The more tied up you make the center of the city the less it will be used.

Apparently the goal is to considerably further slow traffic downtown___ and that will increase activity? NO it will not increase any activity. People will further use First Avenue, A avenue, and eighth avenue to get through. I’m left to woder if the self annointed ‘wise persons’ in city govt. aren’t whistling in the dark knowing they have a losing proposition in their downtown hotel and are thus casting about for any straw in a sea of red ink. Perhaps the thinking is to snarl downtown so badly that some will, in terminal frustration, just stop and get a room.

Ones first thought is contemplation over just how stupid these people can get. The problem is that they aren’t stupid. And if you can absorb that they are mature educated experienced adults it leaves the question of how they can entertain a concept so utterly stupid. All I can come up with is that they are so incredibly hubristic, smug, and self absorbed that they only operate in a group of like minded individuals… they are their own support group, sounding board, and pom pom squad. The result is some inane thinking worthy of the record books being gestated by a clique of arrogance with no reason or common sense involved.

Cedar Rapids is being driven over a cliff and the cabal of self congratulatory ‘movers and shakers’ are fighting over who gets to drive.

Philip Menken could not have said it better when describing the leadership in Cedar Rapids, “This roaming band of simpletons has controlled the city for over a century, creating a city with a complete disregard for taste or sensibility, illegal houseboat colonies on the Cedar River, a practice of bulldozing half the community every 30 years in the name of “urban renewal,” and a penchant for ineffective flood control which has caused the city to be nearly destroyed by several floods in the past. In recent years, City officials have done everything possible to completely destroy any “identity” Cedars Rapids may have laid claim to by renaming the airport, referring to the area as “the Corridor”, and re-naming nearly half the city as “The Czech Village.”

An unbelievably bad idea.
I had already wondered if the city was attempting to make an inpenetrable fortress out of the old core of Cedar Rapids: Closing off second avenue; blocking off 1st street east just before it gets to eighth avenue; eliminating third street east for a block just ‘north’ of first avenue; building yet another river wall next to the river (only proposed I suppose); and of course, the train crossings.

One has to wonder who they are trying to keep out, and who they are trying to keep in?

What is certain is that the decreased ability to get around in downtown Cedar Rapids will only result in fewer and fewer people wishing to visit or locate there.

There are a few good ideas in the comments above, perhaps the city ‘leaders’ will take notice? I doubt it.

of course its a good idea… there simply is not, and never was, enough traffic to justify 3-4 lanes in each direction.

Each time I drive through downtown I spent 45 seconds at usually two different lights, with absolutely nobody coming. Frankly it would be faster for me to stop, look, then go at a couple intersections.

today I walked across about 7 lanes of traffic going from one corner to the opposite corner of a street downtown, and there were 2 cars waiting for the light to turn green while I jaywalked across a street that had no traffic coming. Make those intersections 4 way stops and we all would have gotten through there and on with our lives faster.

On top of the fact that the one-way streets are miserably bad for businesses (Who wants to have a store on a street that nobody leaving downtown drives on in the evening?), getting extra parking as a result sounds like a win for everyone.

If the city had retained me to design a system that would prevent people from venturing downtown, I would advise reducing the number of lanes moving each direction and removing the stop lights, replacing them with four way stop signs. Odd that this is the same recommendation that the consultant the city hired to increase activity in the down town area made. Maybe he didn’t understand what the city was asking for. If this goes forward, I will do everything I can to avoid getting ensnared by the resulting down town traffic grid lock. I doubt I will be alone.