SOUTH PORTLAND – A vocal group of Knightville residents is determined to carry on a nearly two-year battle with the city of South Portland to eliminate the one-way traffic pattern between D and E streets.

Residents argue that the block of one-way traffic is dumping vehicles onto the residential streets in the neighborhood as drivers seek a cut-through to get back to Ocean Street or Cottage Road.

Despite several studies that show the one-way pattern is not negatively impacting the residential streets – in terms of the amount of traffic generated, the speed of the traffic and additional parking on the side streets – for residents the perception is that one-way traffic is disrupting the peace of their neighborhood.

They also say the one-way pattern is in conflict with both the city’s Bridge Plan and Comprehensive Plan. That’s why they’re hoping to convince city leaders to return to two-way traffic, as was the case prior to the street improvements made in Knightville three years ago.

In an attempt to see if any common ground could be reached, the city recently hired a professional facilitator to work with the ad hoc group of residents, and business owners who were appointed by the City Council in 2014 to address some of the concerns raised by the one-way pattern, according to City Manager Jim Gailey.

Gailey said that although his staff is still reviewing the results from that meeting, there is “a clear division between businesses and residents” regarding the one-way traffic. Business owners want to keep it, he said, while many residents don’t.

Because of the ongoing debate, Gailey said, the City Council might be forced to address the issue in an upcoming workshop, although no date has yet been set for such a discussion.

Mayor Linda Cohen told the Current this week it was her hope that the city-appointed working group would create “a well-thought-out and ‘makes-most-happy solution’ to the parking and traffic issues” in Knightville, adding that her preference is for “a collaborative approach.”

“Until I’ve heard from everyone in a workshop,” she said, “I’m reserving my thoughts,” about whether to return to a two-way traffic pattern.

Joe Walker, who’s lived on B Street in Knightville since 2011, is one of the residents pushing hard for the city to eliminate the one-way block, arguing it makes travel through the neighborhood “convoluted.”

“You can’t drive south on Ocean all the way to the roundabout, (so) you have to turn right onto one of the letter streets if you’re going to Hannaford, the post office, City Hall” or up to Broadway,” he said this week.

Walker said that restoring two-way traffic would “bring real peace back to the neighborhood,” which is made up of a “tiny street grid.”

He said about a dozen people serve on the ad hoc committee, but added that “quite a few more are being drawn into the effort” to bring back two-way traffic.

Walker thinks the recent facilitated meeting clearly showed that implementing one-way traffic was “a bad decision, which is indeed (negatively) affecting the neighborhood in a way that clearly contravenes both the Bridge Plan and the Comprehensive Plan.”

And, he said, “It was also clear that the neighbors are not going to back down” and that the group is “gaining strength in numbers.”

Annette Holmes, another resident of Knightville fighting for a return to two-way traffic and who has lived on D Street for 60 years, said the decision to create a one-way block was done at “the 11th hour” to appease one “very vocal businessman.”

She said it was just after the one-way traffic pattern was implemented that she and another neighbor noticed a significant increase in traffic on D Street. Holmes said a traffic count done in 2013 showed that the number of vehicles using the roadway jumped from “a few hundred to approximately 1,000 cars a day.”

Holmes is a member of the ad hoc parking and traffic committee and said that when the city made Ocean Street one-way, “I do not believe they had any idea how it would adversely impact our neighborhood.”

After a year of getting nowhere with the ad hoc committee, Holmes said, several frustrated residents, herself included, created a splinter group called The Letter Street People, whose members do not agree with the engineers at Sebago Technics that more than 1,000 cars a day “isn’t much traffic at all.”

From the city’s point of view, Gailey said, Knightville is designed as a mixed-use neighborhood with the goal of welcoming both a variety of businesses and a variety of housing.

But for Holmes, Walker and others, the issue is not so much the mix of uses in Knightville, but the impact of the one-way traffic pattern.

Holmes said a traffic study done earlier this year shows that approximately 50 percent of the traffic on D Street comes from traffic traveling from the north end of the peninsula toward Ocean Street or Cottage Road.

She said one of the main purposes of the Comprehensive Plan is to “assure the livability of neighborhoods by quickly addressing activities that create problems for the neighbors or the larger neighborhood.”

Holmes also argued that by re-establishing two-way traffic on Ocean, “the majority of traffic will stay on the main arteries instead of using the residential streets” as cut-throughs.

She said that D Street “is the narrowest street in Knightville, yet carries the most traffic besides E Street. When drivers are given a choice they instinctively stay on major arteries (but) that choice has been taken away.”

Overall, Holmes said, “We need to give drivers in our neighborhood choices for getting in and out of Knightville. With choices the traffic will flow without impediment.”

Gailey agreed this week that the implementation of one-way traffic was “quite a substantial change,” and that it was done at the request of local business owners who wanted to maintain the angled parking in front of their shops.

However, with the redesigned streetscape the city was building in Knightville, the roadway was not wide enough to allow for two-way traffic and angled parking, as well.

Gailey said the council spent a couple months discussing the request and in the end agreed to a trial period of angled parking. He said for the first year there were “no real issues,” but then in early spring 2014, “we heard that residents were being impacted, particularly on D Street.”

Since the council created the ad hoc parking and traffic committee in Knightville, Gailey said, the message has consistently been that the angled parking is working for businesses, while the professional engineers feel the amount of traffic on D Street doesn’t “really (represent) a high level of vehicle trips.”

Gailey also said that a parking study has shown that while some people do park on the side streets in Knightville to access businesses, they are not parking all day. And, a study of the average speed of vehicles shows that drivers are keeping well below the 25 mph limit.

In addition, he said that in the past three years all city departments, including police, fire and public works, have all adjusted to the one-way pattern and have plans in place for ensuring prompt emergency response.

Gailey said that after his staff is finished reviewing the facilitator’s report, “we will then discuss the question of: ‘Where are we?’”

The traffic pattern in the Knightville neighborhood of South Portland includes a block of one-way traffic between D and E streets. A group of residents is now trying to get the city to return to two-way traffic for that block. Staff photo by Kate Irish Collins

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