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Why is it that in most cities like San Francisco, one way streets work fine but in many of your opinions I have read here, it doe's not work here?
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Who says that they do work well in most cities? And for whom do they work? The commuters? Many residents in other cities have the same problems with one-ways as I do here in Sacramento and that’s why there is a movement around the country to convert them back to two-ways. If you live and walk these streets everyday as I do you’d probably have a different take on the issue. The city is a whole different place when you’re exclusively (or nearly so) on foot or on a bike than behind the wheel.
I agree with you that they are effective at getting rush hour traffic in and out downtown without many back-ups. But is that the sole purpose of these streets? Mixed-use urban grid streets are different than in suburbia where you have separate arterial streets to handle through-way traffic. The grid kind of makes it hard to have pockets of dense urban that are pedestrian-friendly (e.g. NYC's Greenwich Village) so we must to impose measures to force drivers to behave and respect non-drivers and the community they are passing through. Our streets are not just for the convenient use of commuters. They belong to everyone. The problem with the traffic calming measures so far is that it is not part of a comprehensive and effective alternative transportation system and did not include the conversion of one-ways into two-ways in the first place.
Yes I do want to change the way people in Sacramento use our streets. I'm not talking about making the Central City car-less just less-car. Of course, not everyone is going to happy with it. But I think what many people are saying is that they no longer accept the notion that the needs and desires of suburban drivers should always take priority over the needs and desires of the neighborhoods which they are whizing through.
If you don’t like the idea converting one-ways to two-ways what is your solution to the problem? If you don’t see a problem come with me for a day and I’ll show you it.