UrbanRED said: Random question - why do you all consider one ways so bad? As an inner city person I find it easier to jaywalk on them... Click to expand...

In Calgary inner city one-ways have been implemented with many features that make them exclusively auto-focused to the detriment of the neighbourhood around them. They are part of the way of thinking that promotes speed and volume of vehicles passing through, rather than promote connectivity and access for local residents.Combined with a variety of other traffic control features imposed on the inner city (e.g. green-wave light timing for vehicles, advanced green turn signals for vehicles, very long light signal timing cycles for one-way avenues) all these features accumulate to creating unwelcoming, loud and fast auto-focused corridors to the detriment of everyone else: particularly local residents and pedestrians, as well as anyone travelling north and south that is forced to wait to cross the light. These extra features are not exclusive to one-ways, but have been implemented here most whole-heartedly on the corridors in the city centre.I actually prefer one-ways on narrower and local focused streets. A single lane of one-way traffic - with the right traffic controls like stops, signals and pedestrian bump-outs - can be a great way to mitigate speed and reduce cut-through traffic. 7th Street to 11th on 14th Avenue SW is a great example. Sure, there is more traffic as a result of the 17th Avenue construction, but as a resident it's more predictable and slower (which is the whole point). One-ways don't scale up very well though: 5 lanes walls of traffic at 55km/h doesn't make for a livable urban environment or pedestrian-focused streets.TL/DR: 5 lane, auto-focused one-ways are terrible for urban, pedestrian-centric life in urban areas. Two-ways can be better, but most importantly pedestrian-focused design of streets in our urban areas is critical, one-way or two-way. All roads don't and can't be tiny like 14th Avenue SW, but big roads can be done a hell of a lot more pedestrian-focused than any of our major inner city one-way avenues.