News-Record.com

As the old saying goes, be careful what you ask for.

There has been much talk recently about "calming" or "taming" traffic on some of the city's oldest and busiest streets, including East Market in front of the N.C. A&T State University campus and Spring and Edgeworth streets in the historic Cedar Street neighborhood downtown.

East Market is a done deal. It has been narrowed from eight lanes to six, split by a landscaped median and parking on both sides of the street.

Spring and Cedar remain unchanged: speedy one way-streets. But that may change if the City Council next week approves a plan for improvements to the neighborhood, including traffic calming.

Residents complain that cars rush along Spring and Edgeworth, making it risky for pedestrians to cross intersections. The city says the fast-moving traffic makes the neighborhood less attractive to newcomers and detracts from its residential image.

No one suggests that taming would be a bad idea, but there's a trade off. Traffic might do more than slow down. It might creep.

The best example of taming is the half-mile of Spring Garden Street, between Tate and Aycock through the UNCG campus. It used to be a two-way street with no landscaping and the look of having no relation to the campus it passed through. For UNCG, it was an intrusion rather than an asset. Students dodged cars trying to cross the street.

After a $3.2 million makeover in 1997 and 1998, Spring Garden looks like a narrow, lovely campus street shaded by trees, with a grassy median, brick crosswalks and others pleasing features.

But if you're in a hurry, better find another route. Spring Garden has been calmed it to the extent it suffers from paralysis at times.

At 3p.m. the other day, it took a long line of cars about 10 minutes to travel from Tate to Aycock. At one intersection, two light changes were needed to get through.

When classes change on campus, a green light loses its meaning. Traffic must stay stopped while students stream across Spring Garden going from classroom buildings on one side to the other.

East Market has been slowed, but traffic isn't crawling - not yet anyway. A&T's campus occupies only one side of the street. Students aren't crossing in large numbers.

Residents in the Cedar Street neighborhood would like to see Spring and Edgeworth streets between West Friendly Avenue and Smith Street revert to two-way thoroughfares, with on-street parking.

That would certainly slow traffic once it crosses West Friendly, after moving swiftly on four-lane, one-way portions of both streets.

But neighborhood residents, while ridding themselves of one danger, may acquire another: raging motorists.

Drivers are used to having it their way - that is, one way - on both streets.

REMEMBER HIPPIE HILL? THEY'RE BACK.

Speaking of UNCG, Hippie Hill may be getting high again.

During the 1960s and early 1970s, the hill outside the Brown Music Building overlooking the shops along Tate Street became a gathering place for flower children. Dope was smoked, music was played and everyone seemed happy - except some Tate Street merchants and univeristy officials.

Hippie Hill emptied out by the mid-1970s, when the university covered it with shrubs bearing prickly leaves.

But a patch of lawn grows again outside the Brown Building. The other day, a half-dozen or so young people - looking motley and out of the mainstream, of course - gathered on the hill to soak up sunshine and watch the passing scene.

No one was seen firing up a joint. For one thing, the UNCG Police Department, a block away, is bigger and more aggressive than it was 35 and 40 years ago.