Council approves downtown street conversion

Shoppers are likely to have mixed reactions to Tuesday’s decision to convert Tejon Street to two-way through the heart of downtown, interviews with more than a half dozen people revealed.

The nine-member Colorado Springs City Council voted unanimously to abandon a 36-year tradition of driving only south through a five-block stretch of Tejon. The switch-over would occur in the spring.

Folks walking Tejon hours before the vote expressed support for and opposition to the plan.

Some feared a two-way Tejon would increase parking problems, while others welcomed a less confusing drive through downtown.

The council’s action came after two years of study and meetings by a downtown business group and the city's traffic engineering staff.

The Downtown Partnership and city engineers concluded abandoning the one-way will make accessing downtown easier. The partnership, an advocacy group for downtown businesses, also believes the move will bring more people downtown, increasing retail sales.

Council members acknowledged changing the flow of traffic on Tejon won’t solve other problems besetting downtown, including high vacancy rates, panhandling, trash and safety concerns at night.

Still, said councilman Jerry Heimlicher, who represents the area, the mix of one-way and two-way streets has never made sense. Changing the traffic flow, he said, will be a start in making it more pleasant for folks to visit downtown.

The downside? Traffic engineers say driving the five blocks will take on average two minutes more during the busiest time of the day, which on Tejon occurs in the afternoon.

They traffic volume, which averages 7,500 vehicles a day on that stretch, could grow by 30 percent to 50 percent, or close to 11,000 cars and trucks. If so, that volume would be similar to the number of cars that traversed Tejon before it was converted to a one-way in 1971.

Any additional shoppers lured by the prospect of a two-way Tejon will face a familiar problem: limited on-street parking.

New parking spaces will be added near the Pioneers Museum, but six spaces will be taken for turn lanes at Tejon and Colorado Avenue. The net gain: four parking spaces.

Some shoppers indicated parking was a concern for them. But others said they agreed with Heimlicher that a one-way Tejon makes navigating downtown more confusing than it needs to be.

“This is the first time in 13 years I haven’t gotten confused driving down here,” said Mocha Miller, only partly kidding. Miller was taking her two young children into a bakery on Tejon after a stop at the city courthouse.

Miller, a resident of the east side, said the mix of one-way and two-way streets in the core of downtown has always proven a challenge for her, despite visiting about once a week. She thinks making Tejon two-way will prove less confusing in a town that attracts a lot of tourists and has a high turnover of residents.

Jane Radcliffe, plugging a meter before a business meeting, agreed: “I think it’s great. Every time I come down here I get confused.”

Friend and co-worker Meredith Baldwin thought the council’s decision would cause more problems than it solved.

“It gets too congested, and there’s not enough parking as it is,” Baldwin said.

Baldwin, a downtown resident, conceded there are parking garages nearby, but she said most shoppers seem to prefer to cruise Tejon — sometimes endlessly — until a convenient parking space opens up.

“I don’t really mind if they make it two-way, but they (the council) need to create more parking spaces to accommodate the traffic,” she said.

Heather Randall, pushing her 10-month-old son Zane in a stroller, agreed.

“It think it’s a bad idea, she said. “I don’t think there’s enough room to park now.”

Randall said parking garages near Tejon are an alternative, but for parents dealing with strollers and the limited attention span of young children, driving up four or five flights of a parking garage and then getting the kids onto Tejon without fits is a pain.

“I think one-way is fine. It’s been like this since before I was born,” said the 30-year-old.

Rigo Lopez, waiting for his girlfriend on Tejon, said it was worth trying a two-way street. Lopez frequents the nightclubs on Tejon, and he’s seen crashes as tipsy drivers cut across lanes or get confused by the street layout.

“It’s probably going to bring more traffic, and there’s not enough parking,” he said. “But if it makes it safer, it’s probably worth it.”

None of the shoppers said a two-way Tejon — even with more traffic on it — would deter them from coming downtown.

And that’s what proponents hope to hear as residents next spring adjust to a new way of navigating their downtown.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0197 or bill.mckeown@gazette.com

DETAILS ON TEJON STREET CONVERSION

A five-block stretch of Tejon Street through downtown, from Bijou Street to Vermijo Avenue, will be converted to a two-way street in the spring.

The details:

- The conversion will be done over a Sunday and Monday in March or April, timed to coincide with the partial reopening of the Cimarron Street bridge.

- The cost to repaint street and parking lines, install signs and add signals will be about $125,000, an amount set aside in the 2007 city budget.

- Six parking spaces will be eliminated on the west side of Tejon at the intersection of Colorado Avenue, three on the south and three on the north. That will make room for a right-turn lane from southbound Tejon onto westbound Colorado and a left-turn lane from northbound Tejon onto westbound Colorado. Additional parking spaces will be created in front of the Pioneers Museum, for a net gain of four parking spaces.

- Left-turn lanes on northbound Tejon will be added at Colorado, Pikes Peak Avenue and Bijou. Leftturn lanes on southbound Tejon will be added at Kiowa Street, Pikes Peak and Colorado.

- Tejon was made one-way south in 1971, when traffic on the road reached about 11,000 vehicles a day. Today, about 7,500 vehicles drive down the road a day; as a two-lane, traffic volume is expected to grow 30 percent to 50 percent.