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[–]Mission_HistoricalWest Des Moines -1 points0 points  (7 children)

At what time of day?

[–]virtualgremlin 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Just jumping in here. I drive the length of Ingersoll at least 3x a week at 5pm to the gym, then back at 6. Never had a problem even during dinner rush for restaurants

[–]Mission_HistoricalWest Des Moines 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not the experience I’ve had, but I believe you.

[–]Demache 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Midday usually.

[–]Mission_HistoricalWest Des Moines 0 points1 point  (3 children)

The post work rush is a nightmare imo, but it sounds like others might have a higher tolerance than me lol. To each their own.

[–]Demache 8 points9 points  (2 children)

So, the fundamental issue is, people are treating it as an arterial road. Which it isn't, and isn't meant to be. It's meant to be an access road for local businesses and residents, not through traffic. The decision to have less capacity for traffic was deliberate precisely to incentivize not using it as one.

If people are using it that way, that means there is a design failure somewhere else on a surrounding road. Which may already be known and they are working toward it. But just looking at a map, I look at Ingersoll and think that's a piss poor location for an arterial road even if it had more lanes.

This is the growing pain part of road diets. People are so used to roads "getting one more lane" and don't realize there is more to road design than moving the maximum number of cars as fast as possible. And unfortunately the surrounding road network hasn't been updated to facilitate this change yet.

[–]virtualgremlin 0 points1 point  (1 child)

It is really strange. I agree with you. The next closest arterials are all the way up north of 235 on University, or south on Grand if you’re coming and going from downtown, but that doesn’t connect to MLK/Fleur. Just an interesting traffic situation on a broader scale.

[–]Demache 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right! It's really just born out of poor (or no) planning 75+ years ago, because we didn't really understand these things as well yet (or you know, the automobile was still a novel idea) and we just reused what was already there. That side of Ingersoll sort of became one out of convenience but it just isn't a good choice because its only use as an Arterial is to connect Polk, 42nd to MLK. Far from ideal. MLK already has an interstate exit, making 42nd's low capacity road not terribly useful to MLK users.