Illustration by Rich Hauck.
Peggy Driscoll is a convert.
Initially, the Harrisburg resident didn’t think that converting 2nd Street to two-way traffic was a good idea. But she’s come around, in a big way.
“It’s enormously better,” she said recently. “I actually didn’t think that redesigning the road would make much difference, but it’s totally transformed the neighborhood.”
This month marks two years since arguably the greatest change in Harrisburg transportation in over six decades—the remaking of 2nd Street from urban highway back to neighborhood street.
For some 66 years, starting in 1956, three lanes of one-way traffic flew up the street, often at speeds exceeding 50 or 60 mph. Today, the now-two-way road suits the residential neighborhood around it, with traffic slow and steady, usually not exceeding 25 mph.
Admittedly, not everyone is a fan.
As part of the redesign, the neighborhood lost some street parking, and some drivers complain about the roundabouts and speed bumps along the two-mile stretch.
However, I’m with Peggy. Taken as a whole, the 2nd Street redesign has been far more beneficial than detrimental and, in fact, has proven to be inadvertently visionary. Let me explain.
Back in the 1950s, the city and state teamed up to destroy Harrisburg’s urban fabric. Armed with a federal windfall, the commonwealth leaned on local officials to turn neighborhood streets, including 2nd Street, Front Street, Forster Street and State Street, into urban highways.
Maybe these long-ago Harrisburg officials didn’t understand what they were doing, that they were tearing apart their own city to benefit suburban commuters. That’s the generous explanation—but that’s also what happened.
The new highways allowed state workers to zip in and zip out every day, taking their paychecks with them, leaving behind little more than engine noise, car exhaust and, increasingly, blighted neighborhoods.
Now, I believe that there are many reasons to support the recent 2nd Street redesign: pedestrian safety, less noise, calmer streets and better aesthetics among them. But, for me, the number-one reason is that the street has been reintegrated with its city. The road has been taken away from commuters, who have little investment in and even less care for this city, and rightfully returned to Harrisburg residents.
And now, in an unexpected twist, the redesign seems prescient, as well.
Before COVID hit, Harrisburg’s urban highways were already overbuilt. They may have been crowded for two hours on weekdays, during rush hours, but, otherwise, weren’t terribly busy.
And now, post-pandemic, these same roads carry even less traffic—a fraction of prior volume—as state and other office workers have abandoned their Harrisburg offices for remote work. And—hey, secret’s out—they’re not coming back.
I live on one side of Forster Street and work on the other, so I walk across the six-lane street several times daily. Each day, I experience firsthand the vast reduction in traffic volume since the pandemic hit 4½ years ago.
Today, these overbuilt roads, Forster among them, stand as examples of urban planning gone horribly wrong—vast stretches of asphalt, curb to curb, with little traffic to justify multiple lanes slicing through city neighborhoods.
But not on 2nd Street. The redesigned portion suits well what Harrisburg is becoming—less a place to work in and more a place to live in. It still handles local traffic but has been rightsized for the needs of its neighborhood and its residents.
In the 1950s, the city and state conspired to change Harrisburg’s roads to benefit commuters, doing untold harm to the city. Those commuters are now largely gone, working most days from their home offices in the suburbs.
Without them, Harrisburg needs to do what’s best for its own people. It needs to set a long-term goal of reintegrating its major streets within its neighborhoods, in the process making those roads slimmer, slower and safer.
Lawrance Binda is publisher and editor of TheBurg.
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