Two years later, Main Street debate persists
It’s shortly after 5 on a weekday afternoon in downtown Gainesville, and traffic on Main Street is stacked up to the north and to the south of University Avenue. Northbound traffic stretches down to South Fourth Avenue. The tail end of the line of southbound traffic is back at North Third Avenue.
Then the traffic lights turn green one after the other, and southbound traffic begins to move slowly and haltingly. Depending on their starting point, some drivers at University make it through a series of lights and down past South Fourth Avenue. Others end up hitting a red light at South First or Second Avenue.
Nearly two years have passed since construction concluded on the $6.4 million resurfacing of Main from Depot Avenue to North Eighth Avenue, yet debate and disagreement continue over a design that reduced the road from two travel lanes in each direction to one and added a center turn lane, bike lanes, on-street parking and wider sidewalks.