Two ways to help Midtown

Midtown might be going in a whole new direction.

Coeur d’Alene is considering turning Third and Fourth into two-way streets, as the first step in jump-starting Midtown revitalization.

Currently the one-way streets are an express between Interstate 90 and downtown, meaning that drivers hurriedly zoom past the row of funky stores intermixed with homes.

Allowing north and south traffic on both streets would slow the pace, inviting pedestrians and shoppers. The two-way visibility and on-street parking also would boost business and property owners’ incentive to improve their land and stores.

At least that’s what two separate consultants have told city officials and the Lake City Development Corp.

“They were blunt,” Councilwoman Dixie Reid said about the consultants’ suggestion for the best way to stop Midtown’s decline. “If you want Midtown to deteriorate, leave it alone. If you want to save it and make it a really cool place people want to be, then you need to change the direction of traffic.”

City Engineer Gordon Dobler recently used a software program to show how traffic would flow if Third and Fourth became two-way streets. The demonstration proved that it’s a workable idea and predicted that the amount of traffic using these streets wouldn’t change.

The Coeur d’Alene City Council will have a workshop Sept. 2 to consider how to proceed if that’s what residents want.

“We need to have a look at it,” Reid said. “Some people are thinking it’s a super idea, some people say we are nuts.”

If the council likes the idea, Dobler said, the next step is doing more studies to look at issues such as whether to have left-turning lanes.

“I think it’s a great idea if we are trying to make a smaller, more intimate town,” said Allen Dodge, who owns Local Color Screen Printing on Fourth. “It will increase commerce. By improving an area like Midtown, you make it more interesting and more possible for little shops to go in and have success.”

Third and Fourth streets were both two-way until the early 1960s when Interstate 90 was built. Reid said the city converted the streets to one-way to make it easier for traffic to get downtown. That started the demise of Midtown, said Reid, who grew up in the area.

The council also will get an overview of a proposal to change downtown zoning to allow more dense, urban-like development. Currently the city’s downtown zoning rules limit density and require more parking spaces, which make it difficult to build townhouses and apartments.

LCDC Executive Director Tony Berns said the Coeur d’Alene Planning Commission has approved the idea and now the council needs to look at the proposal.

“It’s a way for Coeur d’Alene to do smarter, denser growth,” Berns said.