FAQs

The travel lanes along Higgins Avenue, from Brooks Street to Broadway Street, will be reduced from four lanes to three (two travel lanes with a center turn lane). As traffic transitions onto the bridge, the two travel lanes will continue and the center turn lane will become a buffer space between directions of travel. 

The bridge will not remain a four-lane configuration because having four lanes between the three-lane roadway segments would create bottlenecks at both ends of the bridge. This could encourage unsafe passing and higher speeds on the bridge, followed by sudden merging, increasing the risk of crashes. Keeping the bridge at three lanes provides consistent, predictable lane continuity through the corridor and improves overall safety. 

National studies of similar 4-to-3 lane conversions show that these projects often produce strong economic benefits to users of Downtown. 

Safety: The Higgins Corridor Study estimates that converting Higgins from four lanes to three will reduce crashes by more than 30%, creating a safer environment for drivers, pedestrians, bikers, and rollers. 

Enhanced Placemaking:  more comfortable streets create a higher “quality of place.” When people feel safer walking, crossing the street, and spending time in the area, they tend to stay longer and visit more often. This leads to more frequent trips and increased local spending.  

Improved traffic circulation:  better traffic circulation makes it easier for customers to access businesses and destinations 

By improving safety and creating a more welcoming, people-friendly environment, the Higgins conversion is designed to support both public safety and a thriving local economy. 

The street reconfigurations for Higgins, Front, and Main are being implemented to improve safety and accessibility while keeping traffic moving efficiently throughout downtown.   

Traffic modeling shows that the combined projects will have an impact on travel times but will be limited to only the peak hour (i.e. “rush hour”).  Outside of the peak travel time, traffic is expected to move more efficiently due to better signal coordination and the addition of dedicated left turn lanes, which tend to reduce back ups and conflicts.  

On Higgins at peak travel time, drivers may experience a small amount of additional delay.  This delay is a relatively small tradeoff for a safer downtown network.   

Converting Front and Main back to two-way streets will improve overall circulation by making downtown easier to navigate and reducing unnecessary detours and circling.   In addition to the one-way to two-way conversion, other safety improvements for both streets are being considered.  The safety improvements being considered are tabled intersections, rapid flashing beacon crosswalks, all-ways stops, and others.  Traffic will then move at safer, more predictable speeds, which is more appropriate for a dynamic downtown with high multi-modal activity.   

The new traffic signal at Madison and Front will further improve access into downtown and help balance flow across the network.   

In summary, by reducing speeds, adding a dedicated center turn lane, and reducing unnecessary circling, these changes are expected to reduce crashes.  In turn, this will reduce the traffic delays caused by collisions and improve reliability for everyone.