Downtown traffic congestion

by Richard Kennedy
President Des Moines Historical Society

As someone who lived in Des Moines from 1955 through 1999, I thought I might give a brief history of downtown traffic congestion.

Before the Big Catch Plaza, there was a road parallel to the north side of Albertson’s (now Dollar Tree). As such there were two traffic signals very close to each other (see red dots on photograph below) on Marine View Drive South. These two signals, in conjunction with the signal at 1st Avenue South and Des Moines Way (now Des Moines Memorial Drive) often backed up southbound traffic on 1st Avenue South to South 208th Street. It also adversely impacted southbound traffic on Des Moines Way.

One-way Couplet

The City’s attempt to solve downtown traffic congestion involved the use of a one-way couplet. The following headlines are from The Des Moines News:

• Jan. 17, 1973 — City, state schedule meet on one-way street plan
• Jan. 24, 1973 — Time to decide on one-way streets
• Feb. 7, 1973 — One-way street opposition mounted
• Feb. 7, 1973 — Alternatives:

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• Feb. 14, 1973 — Merchants uniting to fight proposed one-way street plan
• Feb. 21, 1973 — City Council o.k.’s, one-way street trial [4 month period]

One-Way Street Four Month Trial

• May 9, 1973 — One way system to open
• May 30, 1973 — One way couplet trial results in four accidents, many complaints
• June 13, 1973 — Merchants demand immediate halt to trial one way street couplet
• June 27, 1973 — Merchants to push one-way street fight
• July 4, 1973 — Businessman against one-way couplet give counsel petitions signed by 4000
• July 11, 1973 — Shoppers, businessman favor two way traffic
• Aug. 15, 1973 — State proposes modified street plan
• Aug. 29, 1973 — One-way streets, water problems keep Des Moines councilman busy
• Sep. 5, 1973 — NEWS conducting opinion poll on one-way street plan
• Sep. 12, 1973 — Readers oppose one-way streets
• Oct. 3, 1973 — City may return to two way streets
• Oct. 17, 1973 — Two way streets: A question of when?
• Nov. 7, 1973 — City Council to ponder one-way street issue
• Nov. 14, 1973 —  City asks for immediate return of two way streets
• Dec. 19, 1973 — Return to two-way streets awaits marking of stripes

Aftermath

After the failure of the one-way couplet idea, the city turned its attention to the two traffic signals at South 216th and 218th Streets. Big Catch Plaza was built moving South 218th Street to the intersection of Marine View Drive South and South 216th Street. This eliminated one traffic signal. See the diagram below where the red dot shows the remaining traffic signal.

This did provide a good deal of traffic relief for a number of years. Recently, southbound traffic is again starting to back up significantly.

This ends the history of downtown traffic congestion. The following suggestion is from me alone and does not necessarily represent the opinion of the Des Moines Historical Society. The traffic signals from Des Moines Memorial Drive South to the Kent-Des Moines Road should be synchronized to the speed limit. This would allow southbound traffic on 1st Avenue South/Marine View Drive South to travel the length of the downtown area at the speed limit without stopping or backups. The technology now exists to implement this and it would cost far less than and physical changes to downtown streets.