Quote Originally Posted by Dan Wesson View Post
The MDOT is doing this all over Michigan. They basically will take two lanes of traffic going in one direction and turn it into one. The right side will have a bike lane about three feet wide with a buffer space about four feet and no parking. On the left will be a center turn lane. The same for the opposite direction.

This will do two things...

1) It will force everyone into one lane and slowdown, which is the real goal.
2) The people waiting to enter the lane that is now full will pull out into the center lane and wait or force their way into traffic.

Your commute is going to take longer, no doubts about it.

The bike path angle is all public relations. The cyclists are not out in abundant numbers. I'm pretty sure you are not allowed to walk in that lane.

There have been communities that have nullified the efforts of the MDOT. Mt. Pleasant is one. If the MDOT had done that on the main drag the backup would have stretched far beyond the city limits. People would have been resorting to using residential streets to circumvent Main Street.
Operationally three lanes can carry as much traffic as four in most cases due to left turns blocking traffic for those in the center lanes of four lane roads. At above 20k vehicles per day is where you start to have issues. By having a center turn lane instead of two through lanes you reduce rear end accidents considerably and make the road much safer for users. It is not a PR stunt. It is engineering [[safer) and economics [[less injuries and property damage) driving these road diets. http://www.walkable.org/assets/downloads/roaddiets.pdf