City officials laid out preliminary plans to turn East Johnson Street and East Gorham Street from one-way streets to two-way streets during a Capital Neighborhoods meeting Thursday night.

Capital Neighborhoods, a membership organization representing five downtown Madison districts, held the forum to discuss the pros and cons of this potential transformation and provide insight regarding the project.

Chris Petykowski, a city engineer, and Brian Smith, a city traffic engineer, presented the audience with an update on the scope of the study. The City Council has recently approved the study routing contract and is now waiting for signatures. The study has not been done as of yet.

A consultant will be hired to complete the six-month study of the plan. The study would determine if the plan would be feasible for the City of Madison.

Petykowski noted that preliminary engineering would involve two phases. The first phase would focus on evaluation at a regional level to determine revised traffic volumes on the streets.

The second phase would evaluate specific intersections and how they operate. The phase would determine if more turn lanes would be needed, he said.

Phase one of the traffic study will take place from October to December of this year. Phase two is set to begin in January and will last until March of 2012. Preliminary engineering will take place from April to December of 2012, and the final design will be ready by July of 2013, he said. If the project is finalized, construction is set to begin in March 2014.

Petykowski added, “If you have a two-way street, you probably need some room for left turns at some locations.”

He went on to list a number of issues this project would impact. Pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, parking, air quality and traffic redirection were just a few.

Petykowski also noted that further public meetings and six city board meetings would further discuss the study.

“There are a lot of stakeholders in a project like this,” he said.

The majority of Capital Neighborhood members were in favor of the reconstruction to two-way streets.

Other members of the forum discussed how two-way streets create better visibility to commercial establishments, while one-way streets encourage speeding.

Smith added that Johnson receives about 2,200 – 2,300 cars per hour during peak traffic hours. Two-way streets could slow down traffic due to left turns, creating more traffic jams.

Petykowski thanked the audience for their feedback and reminded them to, “look at the tradeoffs.”