The Economic Impact of One- to Two-Way Street Conversions: Advancing a Context-Sensitive Framework

As many communities across the US convert one-way streets to two-way traffic flow, a growing body of work seeks to understand the implications. While some work indicates that there can be road safety and performance benefits to these conversions, only a small number of papers deal with the economic implications. This paper examines the economic impact of one to two-way street conversions, using 6 case studies between 2004 and 2011. Researchers analyzed these cases, looking at relative job growth in conversion areas as compared to the local economy on both an aggregate and job sector basis. The results illustrate a mixed outcome, more negative than positive. In some cases, job growth in the conversion area exceeded that in the local area, but in other cases it was far lower. These results suggest that street conversions are not a panacea or for redevelopment, but can be effective regeneration strategy for certain sectors.

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• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABE20 Standing Committee on Transportation Economics. Alternate title: Economic Impact of One- to Two-Way Street Conversions: Advancing a Context-Sensitive Framework.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Riggs, William
  • Appleyard, Bruce
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2016-1-10 to 2016-1-14
• Date: 2016

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 18p
• Monograph Title: TRB 95th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Case studies; Economic growth; Economic impacts; Jobs; One way streets; Traffic flow
• Uncontrolled Terms: Conversion; Two way streets
• Subject Areas: Economics; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Society; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01588101
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 16-0162
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Jan 27 2016 5:13PM