Washington Avenue will be changing. Here’s what to expect.

In 2020, the city’s Office of Transportation, Infrastructure, and Sustainability (OTIS) released a plan to make Washington Avenue safer by reducing the number of driving lanes from five to three. Then, in February 2022, OTIS announced that the city was moving away from the plan to limit traffic to three lanes.

On Mar. 1, OTIS released its latest plan for the redesign of Washington Avenue. This new plan means that parts of the avenue will have three lanes of traffic, while others will have four or five lanes.

Here’s what we know:

The Washington Avenue Repaving and Improvement Project is a plan to improve the safety of Washington Avenue between Fourth Street and Grays Ferry Avenue. It is overseen by OTIS.

Washington Avenue has not been fully repaved in almost two decades because of the limited resources of city government and the immense need for improvements to roads citywide.

Right now, the avenue has five driving lanes: two lanes for cars each direction, and a center lane for left turns. There are also two lanes for parking, two marked but unprotected bike lanes, and then sidewalks.

Traffic is a problem. The avenue is home to many businesses, warehouses, and residential buildings. There are multiple large development projects in progress, which bring large trucks and construction vehicles. Commercial courier trucks and tractor trailers double-park in lanes, so traffic is frequently restricted to one lane.

Safety is also a problem. Washington Avenue is one of the 12% of Philly roads where 80% of all traffic deaths and serious injuries happen.

In 2020, the city announced its plan to shrink vehicle traffic to three lanes along Washington Avenue from Fourth Street to Grays Ferry Avenue, based on community input and staff analysis that said it would be the safest way to go. Construction was supposed to start in 2021 but was delayed because of the pandemic.

Since then, the project has been on hold. The city held additional meetings to reach people who hadn’t weighed in earlier, specifically in Point Breeze and Grays Ferry, where lower-income residents and residents of color have been historically underrepresented in city planning decisions, according to OTIS. During that time, the city said it received strong opposition to the proposed Washington Avenue plan and said residents raised concerns about the city’s engagement efforts during 2020, which were mainly virtual, which limited people who don’t have access to internet from participating, according to OTIS.

Many of those against the original plan believe having just three lanes would create more traffic in the side streets of Washington Avenue, like Carpenter or Ellsworth Street. They say it would also increase response times for emergency vehicles.

On Feb. 5, OTIS announced that the city would not consider fully limiting traffic to three lanes, as initially proposed. Instead, the plan would either have three lanes in some areas and four lanes in others or will make the entire corridor four lanes. Both of these plans include protected bike lanes and shorter crosswalks.

On Mar. 1, OTIS released its latest plan for the redesign of Washington Avenue. This new plan will have the avenue vary between three, four, and five lanes.

Work on the project will start in 2022 and the repaving and lane reconfiguration is expected to be completed in the summer. According to OTIS, the repaving and lane reconfiguration part of the project will cost less than $1 million. Community members and businesses will be notified by the city before and during construction.

In the original three-lane layout, there would have been three lanes for almost all the length of the project, except for a viaduct on the western edge and Broad St. There would be one lane for cars going each direction, instead of two (as it is now). That second lane would be changed into wider, more protected bike lanes and wider sidewalks for pedestrians.

The city has said that a three-lane layout is the safest. Additionally, it’s the option most people prefer: In the city’s own surveys from July 2020, 71% of respondents said the three-lane option was their most preferred.

The city is going with a mixed-lane layout, with some parts of Washington Avenue having three, four, or five driving lanes.

Here’s how that breaks down:

This plan uses the original three-lane design in some areas and four lanes in others. Some parts of Washington Avenue will remain as five lanes, such as near the Broad St. intersection and near the viaduct on 25th St. Protected bicycle lanes will be installed on 18 of the blocks.

In the four-lane sections, there are two lanes of traffic in one direction and one lane of traffic going in the other, and a center lane for left turns. The one lane not being used would allow for protected bike lanes and wider sidewalks for pedestrians.

Here are the benefits and drawbacks of the four-lane section:

Bus boarding islands and marked loading zones for businesses will also be added to reduce the number of double-parked vehicles and maintain the flow of traffic. City Council still needs to pass legislation to allow for the new parking and loading regulations.

OTIS will also be shortening the amount of time cars will be allowed to park on Washington Avenue to allow for more people to park and use the avenue.

This article has been updated since it first published.