FORT LAUDERDALE — Rush hour in downtown Fort Lauderdale is one big traffic jam — and drivers complain it’s only getting worse.
To help ease gridlock, Fort Lauderdale is studying a controversial proposal that would turn Andrews Avenue and Third Avenue into a pair of one-way streets with dedicated bus lanes from Sunrise Boulevard all the way to Southeast 17th Street. Northbound traffic could take Andrews and southbound traffic could take Third Avenue, or vice versa.
The plan got a double thumbs down from residents during a recent public meeting held at ArtServe on Sunrise Boulevard.
When the traffic engineers hired by the city asked for a show of hands from people who support the proposal, not one hand went up.
“It would be absolutely ruinous,” Doug Eagon told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Eagon, a developer who retired as vice chairman of Stiles Corp. six years ago, was one of several people who spoke against the idea, known as one-way pairs.
One-way streets were designed to move cars into and out of downtown areas. Many are just a block apart from each other.
“These one-way pairs were all the rage in the 1950s,” Eagon told the traffic engineers. “And all the cities started turning them back in the 1990s because it wasn’t worth it.”
Eagon argued that if Fort Lauderdale were to move forward with the one-way pair plan, it would ruin the character of downtown, inhibit the pedestrian experience and hurt businesses along those two streets by making it harder for customers to get to them.
“This is even worse than a bridge because you’re dividing downtown with two main roads that are three blocks apart,” he said. “Cars are going to be in circular chaos trying to find their way. How are people going to get around? I can rattle off 10 more reasons why we shouldn’t do it, but I’ll leave it at that.”
How the one-way pair idea emerged
Critics are asking why the city is spending time and money to study the one-way pairs concept.
Fort Lauderdale officials embraced the idea after the city’s doomed Wave streetcar project was canceled in May 2018.
The Wave was a planned 2.8-mile streetcar line with construction costs in excess of $200 million.
Fort Lauderdale’s Downtown Development Authority came up with the idea more than 20 years ago as a way to foster growth and development in downtown. On the other side, critics argued the “Train to Nowhere” would lose money and do little to relieve congestion.
The Wave project eventually became a poster child for government waste.
Not a single track was laid, but project managers spent at least $33.7 million in federal, state and local tax dollars planning for the rail line and its overhead power lines.
After the streetcar plan fizzled, Fort Lauderdale’s business and development community said it was absolutely critical to find an alternative immediately.
Developer Alan Hooper, then chairman of Fort Lauderdale’s Downtown Development Authority, warned that traffic would only get worse as new hotel, condo and apartment towers rose downtown.
“If you feel like the traffic is an issue today, it’s going to be a bigger issue in the next two to three years,” he said at the time.
That’s where the one-way pair idea came in, Mayor Dean Trantalis said.
“We were seeking an alternative method by which we could provide local mass transit solutions without having to dig up the streets and have overhead wires to operate the streetcars,” he said. “This would have allowed us to have a dedicated lane for a multi-passenger vehicle, which would take it out of the travel lanes. And every 15 minutes there’d be a pick-up of passengers and a drop-off.”
Longtime resident Marc Dickerman said he remembers hearing about it after the streetcar project died.
“I thought they were crazy,” he told the Sun Sentinel. “I think it’s just going to cause more congestion. I didn’t know they were going to take one lane out of commission (on each street for buses). That makes me oppose it even more. It’s a bad idea.”
‘Something has to be done’
But traffic experts say one-way pairs can lead to better traffic flow by reducing the number of traffic signals at intersections while adding bike lanes, wider sidewalks and dedicated bus lanes.
Greg Stuart, executive director of the Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization, is not a fan of one-way pairs, but thinks they’ll work in this case.
“When the Wave got scrubbed, I talked to Dean about how that (one-way pair option) might be a solution to the traffic downtown,” Stuart said. “Typically I’m not big on one-way pairs, but in the case of downtown Fort Lauderdale, it would more than likely relieve the type of gridlock we’re experiencing now.”
One-way pairs help to increase traffic flow, which makes it hard to cross the street, Stuart said.
“But something has to be done downtown,” Stuart said. “There’s no land to add traffic lanes and they’ve approved a lot of development downtown. You can’t dump 2,000 more cars on a road with two lanes in each direction. The lanes can only handle so much traffic. You have to find a solution.”
In 2018, after the Wave project was killed, Fort Lauderdale included the one-way pairs project as part of Broward County’s transportation surtax referendum initiative.
In 2019, the city allocated $102,500 toward the project and the Downtown Development Authority agreed to provide a $25,000 grant.
In 2020, the project was awarded transportation surtax funding for the planning ($195,000), design ($780,000) and construction phases ($5.5 million).
In February 2024, Fort Lauderdale commissioners approved a $319,760 agreement with Kimley-Horn and Associates to complete the feasibility study.
A public meeting was held in September 2024 at the Holiday Park Social Center. A second was held in February at ArtServe. A third meeting is planned later this year.
“I have had nothing but negative feedback,” Vice Mayor Steve Glassman told the Sun Sentinel. “A lot of cities with one-way pairs are reverting back. The track record is not good. I am not in favor of it and I don’t know why we are continuing to discuss it.”
‘We’re a residential downtown’
In cities around the country — including Louisville, Denver and Austin — one-way streets are being converted to two-way streets in an effort to slow down drivers and improve walkability. The conversions can also help businesses that rely on pass-by traffic.
Charlie Ladd, a local developer and board member of the Downtown Development Authority, predicts the one-way pair study will go nowhere.
“They paid the money and they did the study and now the study will sit on a shelf,” Ladd said.
Many cities are getting rid of their one-way streets, not adding them, Ladd noted.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “If we had built 15 new office buildings and were bringing in 15,000 people a day, it might have made sense. Now the focus is to make the streets more walkable because we’re a residential downtown. There’s probably been one office building and 20 apartment towers built in the last 15 years. Office buildings are a big generator of inbound and outbound traffic. With apartment towers, people stay downtown.”
Fort Lauderdale’s mayor says he’s heard from plenty of people opposed to the one-way pair plan.
“There’s been a lot of pushback on it,” Trantalis said. “I still think it’s a good idea. I still support it, but I don’t think the community does. I thought it was forward thinking, but the community is not in favor of it. So we’re just going to have to move on.”
Stuart, executive director of the Broward MPO, argues the city really does need to do something to improve traffic flow.
“If Dean doesn’t think it’s worth pursuing, you can’t force the city to do it,” Stuart said. “You guys keep building stuff and people need to get around. I don’t normally support one-way pairs, but in this case I think it’s going to make the city function better. But in the end, it’s the city’s call.”
Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com. Follow me on X @Susannah_Bryan
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