Downtown residents push to keep South Tobin Street open at least until South Second Street becomes 2-way

This map from Renton’s Six-Year Transportation Improvement Plan shows South Second Street being reworked to carry two-way traffic. South Tobin Street (already a two-way street) is immediately north of South Second, and would be an important detour during construction. (South Third Street only carries eastbound traffic.)

South Second Street currently has four lanes running westbound past Renton High School. They are oddly separated by a planted median that dates back to when the street was a two-way street prior to the 1960s. The Renton Six-Year Transportation Improvement Plan calls for this street to be returned to two-way.

One of the many bright suggestions from residents at last night’s hearing on South Tobin Street was to at least keep the street open until South Second Street gets its two-way conversion that the City has been planning for over a decade.

The South Second Street conversion has been part of Renton’s Downtown Civic Core Vision and Action Plan for years, and it has received over a million dollars in grant funding.  It has appeared in Renton’s Six Year Transportation plan since at least 2018, and maybe earlier.

South Second Street has been one-way westbound since the 1960s.  When the street is converted to two-way, it could carry some of the eastbound traffic currently carried by Tobin, which would be especially important when Airport Way gets blocked from accidents.

Furthermore, the conversion of South Second Street will require that every intersection on the South Second street be reworked, requiring significant lengthy closures of South Second Street.  These closures would be much more painful to motorists without South Tobin Street.  South Third Street is a one-way westbound street, and can not relieve South Second’s eastbound traffic during construction.

Project Sheet from Renton’s Six-Year TIP

At least two Councilmembers at last night’s Council Meeting wanted to explore this idea further, and they made a motion to delay consideration of vacating Tobin Street until after the Second Street conversion was complete.   During the debate on their motion, both Renton’s Mayor and Public Works Director indicated that they had no knowledge of the Renton High School rebuild schedule; this was surprising to many of us, since the schedule has been widely publicized for at least a year and shows the School’s construction continuing until mid-2030.

Renton’s Public Work’s director did say that South Second Street could potentially be converted within the next five years.  These timelines give even more credibility to the residents’ suggestion that Tobin remain open, at least through completion of South Second Street.  At that time a new transportation study could be completed with the new street patterns, and a better assessment made regarding whether Tobin could be closed.

As a side note, the additional five years of keeping South Tobin Street open would make it more clear whether a potential mandatory airport runway extension would permanently close Airport Way, shifting traffic to Tobin.  I’ve described this concern in this comment on one of my earlier blog entries on this topic.

Delaying the vacation of South Tobin Street at least until after South Second Street is converted would not prevent completion of the new Renton High School, and it seems like the preferred, rational solution that prevents any irreversible errors in Renton’s transportation planning.  I thank the three Councilmembers that appear to support this plan, Councilmembers Rivera, Van, and O’Hallaron.  I also thank downtown resident Sarah Becker, who was the first person I know to point out that South Second should be converted to two-way before there is any talk of closing Tobin.  (Ms Becker had also been an outspoken advocate of saving the Tobin neighborhood from destruction.)

As I covered in my previous blog post, the School District and Mayor do not currently have enough Council votes to pass an ordinance immediately vacating South Tobin Street.  The idea to table the vacation request until after the South Second Street conversion, and ideally a subsequent traffic study following conversion, could be a the sensible and necessary compromise on this issue.

South Second Street two-way conversion is project number 22 in the Six Year TIP, and is shown in yellow because it is partially funded already.

This excerpt from the Six-Year TIP includes South Second Street two-way conversion as project number 22, partially funded.

This diagram from page 47 of the Downtown Civic Core Vision and Action Plan describes the conversion of South Second Street to two-way as a “bold move to improve circulation” that will have “dramatic and positive effect on the area.”  Since circulation already needs to be improved, Renton residents feel this project should be completed before there is any discussion of closing the two-way South Tobin Street.