Two blocks of Second Ave SE in CR to close forever Monday

CEDAR RAPIDS - New traffic lights are up. There's a little stretch of new pavement. And the lines on the streets are freshly painted.

On Monday, it is slated to happen: One-way Second Avenue SE, the arterial street that takes motorists into the downtown, will close permanently between 10th and 12th streets SE to make way for the Physicians' Clinic of Iowa's new Medical Pavilion.

The closure of the two-block stretch of inbound Second Avenue SE, which was approved by the City Council last fall, has required the city to turn outbound Third Avenue SE into a two-way street - with two lanes leaving the downtown and one coming into downtown with a center-turn lane - between 13th Street SE and Eighth Street SE. The one block portion of 13th Street SE between Second and Third Avenues SE also will become a two-way street as will Second Avenue SE between 12th and 13th streets SE.

Come Monday, motorists who now use Second Avenue SE to get downtown will be directed at 13th Street SE to Third Avenue SE or First Avenue East, with those taking Third Avenue SE having to turn again at Eighth Street SE to get downtown.

Good luck, says Scott Wieser, who lives in an apartment in the 800 block of Third Avenue SE.

“You want to count the accidents with me?” Wieser said from his bicycle on Wednesday afternoon in the middle of the city's changing urban landscape.

Dave Elgin, the city's Public Works Department director, on Wednesday confirmed that the Second Avenue SE closure is slated for Monday when the city gives up ownership of the two-block section of street to make way for the new medical building.

Elgin said public works employees will be on hand Monday to monitor traffic flow at peak drive times to see what kinds of traffic congestion might result from the street changes. However, Elgin noted that a traffic study shows that the city's street grid is sufficient to handle the changes without jeopardizing motorist safety. Over time, motorists who have used Second Avenue SE will select among numerous options to get to the where they are going, he said.

Among the changes in the street realignment is the removal of on-street parking on sections of Third Avenue SE.

Sara Graham was out walking her dog Wednesday afternoon in the 1200 block of Third Avenue SE and said parking in front of her house was disappearing as part of the street changes. For her, it means parking behind her house in a space off an alley, though friends who visit may have to park in a medical office nearby.

“It's going to be kind of a problem,” she said. In terms of personal safety, her preference is to park on the street, not off an alley, she said.

Don Thomas, who served as the city's streets commissioner and City Council member from 1994 through 2005, on Wednesday once again called the City Council's decision to close a section of Second Avenue SE for the new medical building “a big mistake” and one that he says was “unnecessary.”

Thomas said the PCI complex is a good thing for the city, but he repeated his view that PCI should have modeled its new medical building after one in Springfield, Ill., where physicians built the building over a busy street, not on it.

Jeff Jones, owner of Jeff Jones Furniture, 803 Third Ave. SE, couldn't have been happier on Wednesday with the PCI project because it meant that Third Avenue SE outside his store was turning from one-way to two-way. Now his delivery drivers can quickly turn on Eighth Street SE and get to Interstate 380 instead of having to go four blocks out of their way to get there. A small downside is that he's going to have to put up an exterior sign so those heading downtown on Third Avenue SE can see his store, too, he said.

Bicyclist Wieser predicted growing pains and dented fenders will come with the redirection of traffic.

“We've been driving on these (one-way roads) for years. It's going to get crazy,” he said.

At the same time, he said the cost of any inconvenience would be more than offset by PCI's investment in a “big, modern” medical facility. He's partial to PCI, though, he said.

“They've replaced a couple bones in me,” he said of his two hip replacements handled by PCI physicians. “They took care of me.”