If you heard that Traverse City's city commission made State Street's two-way traffic pattern permanent this July and assumed the debate was over, you heard half the story. The vote settled a legal question. It did not touch a single traffic cone, repaint a single lane line, or fix a single backup at Cass and Union. That work is still ahead of you, and it will show up in your commute before the snow flies.
The commission voted 4-3 on July 20 to make two-way flow permanent on Pine Street between Front and State, on State Street between Pine and Boardman, and on the stretch of Boardman between State and Front. Commissioners Ken Funk, Jackie Anderson, and Mitchell Treadwell voted against it, ending what Funk called a long, debated topic. What most residents don't realize is that this configuration undoes a change from 1967, when State and Front were converted from two-way to one-way in the first place. Downtown Traverse City is not adopting something new. It is going back to how the street worked for most of the city's history, just with modern lane markings and a lot more foot traffic.
The Numbers That Made Commissioners Comfortable
The three-year pilot generated enough data that the city's own traffic engineer, along with a separate consultant hired by the Downtown Development Authority, both recommended keeping the two-way configuration. Here's what tipped the scale:
| Metric | One-Way (pre-2022) | Two-Way (pilot period) |
|---|---|---|
| 85th percentile vehicle speed | 26 mph | 22 to 23 mph |
| Parking revenue on State Street | baseline | up 18.5% |
| Property tax revenue along corridor | baseline | up 5.7% |
| Business owners rating experience positive | n/a | 32 of 43 surveyed |
The speed drop matters more than it looks on paper. A car traveling 22 mph instead of 26 mph needs meaningfully less distance to stop, which is the entire reason the Downtown Development Authority pushed the pilot in the first place: fewer conflicts between cars and the pedestrians who now fill State Street on summer evenings. Cyclist and pedestrian crash numbers fell during the pilot years, according to the data presented to commissioners.
The parking revenue jump surprised some business owners who expected two-way traffic to scare drivers away. Cousin Jenny's owner Gerilyn DeBoer, who has run her restaurant on State Street for three decades, said the old one-way pattern created its own hazards. Joel Mulder, who operates a brewery on the corridor, put the visibility shift plainly:
"When it was one way, it led out of town. So when you're leaving town and you see a restaurant, you're already leaving town. But when you're coming into town and see a restaurant, there's more opportunity to stop."
That is the kind of detail a traffic study won't capture but a business owner will.
What You'll Actually See Between Now and Next Spring
Here is the part that trips people up. The commission's vote made the traffic pattern permanent, but it explicitly did not authorize the physical construction needed to make the configuration work well long term. DDA Executive Director Harry Burkholder confirmed that residents should expect small changes like traffic cones and ongoing work over the next 12 to 18 months, not a finished street.
About a month after the vote, in mid-August, the DDA board approved a contract of up to $20,000 with Progressive Companies to identify and prioritize the first phase of modifications the corridor still needs. That list includes mid-block crosswalks, the possibility of a single or dual bike lane, and the removal of some parking spots to smooth traffic flow. Burkholder has said he wants that array of options ready for the city's Complete Streets Advisory Committee to review by October or November, which means the next real decision point for downtown drivers is a fall away, not a done deal from July.
In the meantime, the friction points that showed up during the pilot haven't gone anywhere. The current design leaves State Street with three westbound lanes and only one eastbound lane, which means traffic volume per lane running eastbound during evening peak hours runs close to four times what the westbound lanes carry. That imbalance is exactly why backups keep building at Cass and Union, where left-turn conflicts have become a known irritant. A fix exists (traffic light modifications at those intersections) but it carries an estimated price tag of $500,000 to $1 million, money the city hasn't allocated yet.
Delivery drivers are feeling it too. The two-way configuration was never designed with modern delivery patterns in mind, and vehicles making stops on State Street now regularly block both travel lanes and any future bike lane space. If you've noticed a UPS truck holding up traffic near Union Street on a Tuesday morning, that's not a one-off. It's a structural gap the DDA's new contract is supposed to help close.
The Parking Tradeoff Nobody Has Settled
Ask five downtown business owners about parking and you'll get five different answers, which is honest, because the tradeoffs are real. Parking revenue is up 18.5% along State Street since the pilot began, which reads as good news until you consider that any bike lane addition would come at the cost of on-street spaces. DeBoer voiced the concern that a lot of downtown regulars share:
"I just hope they don't take away too many surface parking areas because I think they're necessary. I hear it all the time: there's no parking, I never come downtown. And I say, yes, there is parking. You just got to be creative."
That tension, more revenue per space but fewer spaces if a bike lane goes in, is precisely what the October or November options list is meant to resolve. If you park on State Street regularly, that fall committee meeting is worth watching more closely than the July vote was.
Why This Fall Is a Real Test, Not Just a Paperwork Milestone
Downtown Traverse City doesn't get a quiet stretch to work out these kinks. The Downtown Fine Art Fair returns to Clinch Park September 12 and 13, drawing the kind of foot and vehicle traffic that put pressure on the corridor all summer. Add the ongoing cone work the DDA has flagged, and locals heading downtown this fall should expect a street that looks and drives a little differently than it did in June, not because anything went wrong, but because the fixes are happening in real time rather than all at once.
There's also a broader signal worth noting. The same traffic study that recommended keeping State Street two-way also suggested eventually converting Front Street to two-way as well, in part to balance the directional stress currently concentrated on State. That conversation hasn't formally started, but if you live or work downtown, it's the next domino to watch, likely a year or more out given how long the State Street process took from pilot to permanent vote.
What This Means If You're Downtown Regularly
If your daily routine runs through Cass, Union, Pine, or Boardman, here's the practical version of everything above: the street is legally settled, but not physically finished. Expect intermittent cone work through next spring. Expect Cass and Union to stay a pinch point until the city funds signal upgrades. Expect a fall committee decision that could reshape a handful of parking spots into a bike lane, or not, depending on what the DDA's consultant recommends. None of this is dramatic, but it's the kind of texture that makes the difference between a smooth Tuesday commute and a frustrating one, and it's easy to miss if you only skimmed the July headline.
Traverse City has spent four years turning a pandemic-era traffic experiment into a permanent piece of downtown infrastructure, learning as it went. The street outside your favorite coffee shop or the one you park on before a Little Fleet Soup and Bread night is still being tuned, one intersection at a time.
Following the fine print on projects like this, the ones that shape how a neighborhood actually lives day to day, is part of what makes The Shawn Schmidt Group more than a listing service. If you're weighing a move to a specific block of downtown Traverse City, or you already live here and want a read on how changes like this one affect property values and daily life over time, we're glad to talk it through. Request a Private Consultation whenever you're ready.
