But one-way streets work so well…
The original Wilbur Smith Plan from 1956 showing one-way conversions - From the City of Hamilton
…right?
Large, highway-style, one-way streets have one goal: moving traffic quickly from one place to another without showing any interest in or respect toward the communities they cut through. That’s why Hamilton’s one-ways have earned the nickname: “car sewers”.
No matter how much Hamilton’s dangerous one-way streets are touted as a “competitive advantage”, they make our urban environment hostile to anyone using any other method of transportation, can dissuade much-needed redevelopment, and can even forestall future investment.
One-way streets only work in select contexts, like in neighbourhoods with extensive traffic-calming efforts or in low-traffic areas. Hamilton’s one-ways along King, Main, Wellington, Victoria, Sherman, Sanford, and Cannon (among other streets) are nothing more than inner-city freeways that have made our downtown unlivable for anyone outside a car. They make it hard to operate a thriving business, repel anyone looking to go for a quiet stroll and do some shopping, and are a barrier to improvments.
Hamilton’s one-way streets create raging rivers of traffic that isolate neighbourhoods and make people feel trapped in their homes.
Let’s face it: one-ways are not some ecologically-friendly alternative to two-ways. They’re still roads, and when roads are built for cars and cars alone (as Hamilton’s one-ways are), they’ll still be harmful to the environment. They’ll still cause accidents and make our communities less pleasant. They’ll still prioritize the movement of a single, private consumer good over the well-being of all. They’ll still be a failed solution to a problem that can only be solved by getting more people out of cars and using other methods of transportation for daily trips.
Converting ugly, inefficient, community-killing one-ways into safer and more humane two-way streets is a good policy move.
So here are some facts:
When other communities have converted one-ways to two-ways, they’ve seen marked improvements.
When New Albany, Indiana converted their downtown streets to two-way traffic, people had doubts. But within no time, people began noticing positive changes. The city’s police chief even noted that the city’s two-way streets had
Fewer car collisions and accidents with pedestrians
Less instances of speeding, and
Smoother interactions between all forms of transportation
Even when communities try to defend one-way streets for their design, they tend to only make small improvements regarding one issue while creating new problems elsewhere.
One-ways encourage higher speeds. While studies have shown that one-way streets have fewer car-and-pedestrian collisions due to things like turning, they can be more fatal due to the higher speeds people drive at on one-way streets. One study found that one-way streets have nearly double the speeds that comparable two-way streets have. Research shows that pedestrians hit by cars travelling at 30 KM/h have a 90% chance of survival, which drops to just 20% when the car’s speed is 50 KM/h.
Two-way streets are more efficient than one-ways. It may seem counterintuitive, but two-way streets can actually make your commute easier. Research shows that a two-way network actually has a higher “trip-serving capacity”, meaning it can get you where you need to go better than one-ways can.
Hamilton’s one-way streets are dangerous. The city’s 2022 collision report presented to council in October, 2023 shows that, of the top 10 most dangerous intersections for motorists, those that intersect with one-ways are in the top 4. The same goes for the most dangerous intersections for pedestrians. These one-ways are just as dangerous for cyclists as well, with careless motorists hitting cyclists who are using dedicated infrastructure. The city found that 30.5% of drivers failed to signal properly and almost 14% made illegal turns, which put cyclist safety at risk.
One-way streets are bad neighbours. Few people want to live along the side of an urban highway.
One-way streets are very unpleasant. They isolate communities by making residents feel “penned in” by fast-moving, aggressive traffic and create a kind of “wall” around the neighbourhood. Converting dangerous one-ways to two-way traffic has real, observable benefits.
One-way streets are bad for Hamilton’s families. A study published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health in 2000 that studied Hamilton’s one-way streets found that injury rates for children were “2.5 times higher on one-way streets than on two-way streets and 3 times higher for children from the poorest neighbourhoods than for those from wealthier neighbourhoods.” If one-way streets have been proven to harm children, what families would want to relocate to a neighbourhood that has any number of these dangerous car sewers running through them?
Two-way streets have been shown to help reduce crime. A study of recently converted two-way streets in Louisville, Kentucky found a 23% drop in crime, a 33% drop in car thefts, and a 42% drop in robberies when compared with the street’s one-way crime stats. This could be attributed to the idea of “eyes on the street” - a two-way street is more human-focused, meaning that people are more likely to be walking down it, stopping to chat, or shopping along it, instead of rushing from home or shop to car to avoid lengthy stays on an inhumane one-way street.
People just prefer shopping on calm, pleasant, human-focused two-way streets.
And that translates to benefits for local businesses. Studies also indicate it can help with overall property values as well, which can increase the local tax base and reduce the tax burden on individual households.
Local businesses across the United States have observed noticeable improvements after two-way conversions. Cities like Lubbock, Texas, or Vancouver, Washington, or Lafayette, Indiana all converted one-ways in commercial areas to two-ways and saw amazing commercial expansion and improvements. These improvements were positively cited by the City of Missoula, Montana when they were considering their own two-way conversions. When Medicine Hat, Alberta temporarily converted downtown streets to two-ways due to construction, local business owners even asked if the city could make them permanent, with one local entrepreneur saying “The two-way street and slower [speed] makes it that much more inviting to come…That’s, I think, the feel that we want downtown to be, is, it’s simple and it’s easy.”
Two-way streets can increase property values. A study of a two-way street conversion in Louisville, Kentucky found that property values increased by up to 11.6% on formerly one-way streets that had been converted, while they actually fell by 0.4% on streets that remained one-ways. Even when the city’s overall real estate market declined, newly converted two-ways saw a noticeable increase. An increase in property values means more property tax revenue for a city, which can help us balance our budget and provide high-quality services to every resident of the city.