Who Invented The One Way Street?

[Doc Tinker]

How did the one way street come into being?



Doc

 

[illflem]

Don't know who or when but I'll bet it was done to relive congestion when it changed from horses to cars. I've seen several two ways changed to ones as a town becomes more populated. Makes it easier and takes less space with no left turn lanes and parking on either side of the street.

 

[klenger]

In Denver, they not only made most of the downtown streets one-way, they also rotated the entire downtown area 45 degrees just to make life interesting. Numbered roads not in the downtown area are avenues, numbered roads in the downtown area are streets. There is almost no correlation between the numbered streets and avenues.

 

[lschultz]

Originally posted by Doc Tinker

How did the one way street come into being?



Doc

Doc is back

 

[TPCDrafting]

Originally posted by klenger

In Denver, they not only made most of the downtown streets one-way, they also rotated the entire downtown area 45 degrees just to make life interesting. Numbered roads not in the downtown area are avenues, numbered roads in the downtown area are streets. There is almost no correlation between the numbered streets and avenues.

I'm not sure this is 100% true or not, but I was told the downtown streets of Denver are rotated so that the windows on the buildings on the NW side have a view of Longs Peak and the windows on the SW side have a view of Pikes Peak. Imagine them thinking this up waaaayy back then.

 

[BreaksEverything]

Originally posted by Doc Tinker

How did the one way street come into being?



Doc

ask toolman it's his fault or at

least he had some involvement in it

in his past life as a woman :-laf :-laf :-laf

 

[wcaldwell]

I found in Naples, Italy, they have two-way one-way streets. This is a street that is one-way for everyone except taxi's and busses and anyone else who wants to go the opposite direction.



And besides, they (whomever 'they' are) weren't thinking of my unique situation that I may have to travel in the opposite direction when they made this a one-way street.



BeentheredonethatboughttheteeshirtbuthaveneverworeitWayne

 

[lizzyhermit]

ain't just Naples !

two way one-way streets are popular in other European climes due to the lack of road way space. can be a real episode to look the wrong way on a one way street to see if you are gonna get clobbered when forgetting to look the other way once you cross the wrong way lane

 

[duaneparks]

Originally posted by TPCDrafting

I'm not sure this is 100% true or not, but I was told the downtown streets of Denver are rotated so that the windows on the buildings on the NW side have a view of Longs Peak and the windows on the SW side have a view of Pikes Peak. Imagine them thinking this up waaaayy back then.

Hmmm, that's interesting. Houston is the same, *most* streets run North-South, or East-West, except downtown which is at an angle with a TON of one-way streets.



Wonder what view they were trying to provide? Smog to the Northwest, and smog to the Southeast? Or maybe they wanted to be able to see Pasa-get-down-dena from there...



Duane <-it's flat in Houston

 

[RMcCulloch]

Originally posted by duaneparks

Hmmm, that's interesting. Houston is the same, *most* streets run North-South, or East-West, except downtown which is at an angle with a TON of one-way streets.



Wonder what view they were trying to provide? Smog to the Northwest, and smog to the Southeast? Or maybe they wanted to be able to see Pasa-get-down-dena from there...



Duane <-it's flat in Houston

If you look at the original map of Houston [as drawn for the Allen Brothers] you'll see that the downtown streets were laid out either perpendicular or parallel to Buffalo Bayou.



Only later developers tried the N/S/E/W approach.



BTW, if you think that the Downtown Houston Traffic is a mess now, you should have seen it during the '50s when many were still 2-way. They probably went to 1-way streets to give people a chance to turn Left once in a while without tying up traffic for 10 minutes.

 

[Jff24Gordn]

There was a dead end one way street 30 miles from here. One sign post had a dead end and one way do not enter signs stuck on it. The city got tired of people making fun about it and decided the alley into the other end kept it from being a dead end.

 

[Scot]

ok?