Road Diets?

[Garrett]

I mean, we can dream Omaha one day decides to make the city more hospitable to people.

Sure, but pushing to remove lanes from one of the city's busiest streets is very unrealistic and will turn many against the concept of road diets in general.

It's better to focus on less major thoroughfares with excess capacity. Streets like Leavenworth and other undivided four lane roads for example.

Yeah I think there need to be more tangible successes before the city pushes for Dodge. While Dodge is very much seen as the core of the city, it's mostly seen that way because it's built for cars. In my opinion, there are strong candidates that are more ripe to turn into pedestrian oriented, transit focus corridors. After 24th Street is done in whatever form, you could get another solid BRT line out of a route running between Downtown and Bergan Mercy via Leavenworth, 42nd, Center, and 78th. I think all of these streets could give varying amounts of space for transit priority and increased pedestrian space, with a good combination of existing major destinations and development potential.

[Athomsfere]

Sure, but pushing to remove lanes from one of the city's busiest streets is very unrealistic

That is exactly what The Netherlands did, and it worked amazingly well. A city not much different in population than Omaha able to accommodate over 20 million tourists a year with ease.

and will turn many against the concept of road diets in general.

A very different problem, Yes most American's are utterly awful at understanding what a city should look like. Until they experience it.

I'm also not saying we should start with Dodge, but this should be goal. Instead we keep moving backwards and doing stupid stuff like the expressway, adding lanes at 72nd and on 680.

[Louie]

Sure, but pushing to remove lanes from one of the city's busiest streets is very unrealistic

That is exactly what The Netherlands did, and it worked amazingly well. A city not much different in population than Omaha able to accommodate over 20 million tourists a year with ease.

Really? I just assumed the roads were already narrow thanks to the original timeframe that they were built.

[halgy]

A road diet would be 2 months of readjustment, and then traffic would be back to normal. If the downtown construction has proven anything to me, it is that we don't need that many lanes downtown. The first trip through after a change takes some relearning, but as long as there's one lane open it is usually fine. That is unless there's a big event downtown, but that backs up traffic regardless of how many lanes are open.

[Athomsfere]

Sure, but pushing to remove lanes from one of the city's busiest streets is very unrealistic

That is exactly what The Netherlands did, and it worked amazingly well. A city not much different in population than Omaha able to accommodate over 20 million tourists a year with ease.

Really? I just assumed the roads were already narrow thanks to the original timeframe that they were built.

World War 2 might have helped there, before Canada went and liberated the Netherlands. But for a while after the war, American road design was huge there, and resulted in even the old Amsterdam getting very clogged with cars:




It even got so far that Amsterdam began considering things like the Jokinen Plan, tearing out historical areas to build highways and ring roads through exactly what people go to see now.

Like Paris' similar plans, luckily it went the other way. Car lanes and parking removed, sidewalks extended and bike lanes added.

And it's continuous and iterative. Amsterdam is still removing parking every year and building new and better bike infrastructure every year.

I like to think on few places a lot on transit. Rotterdam and Utrecht are other interesting stories. Here is what Utrecht did with a highway they built:




And Seoul has another famous one



I think if you compare Tokyo, Seoul, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Rotterdam long enough with their decisions post WWII (Or Korean war for Seoul specifically) you can see pretty starkly where each city took the advice of the US for road design, and then realized it was actually the worst possible way of building a city, and changed course.

Tokyo went full send, nearly the other way. As did Amsterdam. And Tokyo the exceptions are equally interesting. Like coming out of a subway, to see businesses built under a highway.

Rotterdam seems to be 80% the way Amsterdam is, but all new construction as the destruction from the war was much more complete.

Utrecht is somewhere in the middle. And it is jarring to leave the city center to where its more car-centric and then the drastic drop in third places and vibrancy.

And then there is Seoul. Which seems to have not fully committed even now to one direction over the other. It's a perfectly odd hybrid of Los Angeles and Tokyo. For every Hongdae there is another area with a 6 lane stroad running through it where the fastest way to cross the street is to go into a train station, walk a block or two, go under the road, then leave the train station to continue your walk.

[Dusty]

Dodge Street won't change anytime soon. Yes, it's the main street for cars to travel East-West. This also means it's the spine to the entire transit network. It comes with massive backlash over taking car access away. You need to prove transit ridership has increased so much that it has caused a significant reduction in car traffic. The problem is the ORBT just gets stuck in traffic. This makes it impossible to make strides in ridership. They designed curbside stations because center lane stations would have taken away car capacity. Drop below a certain level of capacity and you lose federal funding as a highway. This is why light rail will never happen on Dodge either. The best bet is to continue building strong density along Dodge St. Let the current BRT system run its lifespan or possibly 2 lifespans. Most buses only last 12-15 years. At that point plan to leapfrog from BRT lite to Metro rail. Elevated above Dodge or below grade. At that point, you could do a road diet, make left turn lanes, protected bikeway, etc.

None of that will happen unless you build trust with the community about transit. Focusing on other corridors to get ridership up. The city and Metro Transit has a lot of work to get there.

Side note: I would rather focus energy on decommissioning NW Radial HWY before 7-8 roundabouts show up. This area would be incredible as a multi-modal corridor.

[Busguy2010]

I'm tellin' ya, giving that westbound curb lane between Turner Blvd and 69th to bus only would double ridership. Just what it needs is an advantage.

I say give the bus the westbound curb lane only. Stripe it and put some bollards wherever you can. Watch the buses fill up and fly by. I love to envision how quickly they could then travel between 33rd and 69th, flying by the line of cars that usually forms down the hill from UNO. Probably would reduce the travel time by a few minutes or more. Add this would have the least impact on traffic, as probably half the people out there dont use the middle third lane as it is. Eastbound lanes would stay as is, but half is better than nothing.

[Athomsfere]

Dodge Street won't change anytime soon. Yes, it's the main street for cars to travel East-West. This also means it's the spine to the entire transit network. It comes with massive backlash over taking car access away. You need to prove transit ridership has increased so much that it has caused a significant reduction in car traffic. The problem is the ORBT just gets stuck in traffic.

I call that upside down thinking. I mean you are right about the ORBT getting stuck in traffic, it can bunch badly. I missed a bus by 1 minute one time, another didn't show up for 30 minutes, at which time there were 3 basically 1 minute apart.

But as long as we prioritize cars, ridership won't improve because we aren't putting the work in to make transit viable. If Dodge is the backbone, it should be a priority for making it functional.

I'm not saying its easy to do, especially with the Midwest American brain rot we have going on...

[nebugeater]

Dodge Street won't change anytime soon. Yes, it's the main street for cars to travel East-West. This also means it's the spine to the entire transit network. It comes with massive backlash over taking car access away. You need to prove transit ridership has increased so much that it has caused a significant reduction in car traffic. The problem is the ORBT just gets stuck in traffic.

I call that upside down thinking. I mean you are right about the ORBT getting stuck in traffic, it can bunch badly. I missed a bus by 1 minute one time, another didn't show up for 30 minutes, at which time there were 3 basically 1 minute apart.

But as long as we prioritize cars, ridership won't improve because we aren't putting the work in to make transit viable. If Dodge is the backbone, it should be a priority for making it functional.

I'm not saying its easy to do, especially with the Midwest American brain rot we have going on...

That's insulting to the backbone on mid America