On Monday night, the Jamestown City Council approved a contract with R. Patti Concrete & Excavating for reconstruction work of an area of the street between Washington and Lafayette Streets.

The cost will not exceed $167,000.

Mayor Sam Teresi said potholes have been an ongoing problem on that section of the street, largely due to a poor street foundation.  The work that will take place in the coming weeks will finally address the issue, and will put an end to recurring potholes that seem to crop up in that area on a regular basis.

• RELATED: MAYOR TERESI DISCUSSES STREET CONSTRUCTION WITH WRFA

A complete listing of street projects for the 2018 city street construction and repair season is expected to come forward next month.

Looking east on Fourth Street in downtown Jamestown, near its intersection with N. Main St. Since the 1970s, Fourth St. has been a three-lane, one-way thoroughfare through downtown. The JRC’s Peter Lombardi says the city may want to make the street two-way, which he believes would make it more inviting for economic development and related activity.

JAMESTOWN – Mayor Sam Teresi says he would probably support making Fourth Street a two-way street… but also cautions that it would be an expensive and lengthy process.

During his June interview with WRFA on our Community Matters program, Teresi talked briefly about the suggestion to make Fourth St. a two-way street in order to promote a more pedestrian-friendly environment and one that some claim would be more inviting for commerce.

For more than 40 years, Fourth Street has been a one-way street for 14 blocks of downtown – from Prendergast Ave. west to Monroe St. Teresi says that the suggestion to make the street two-way has been nothing new, and he even focused on making it a part of his masters theses during the early 1980s.

“My knowledge of this subject is that from the day that they made Fourth St. into a one-way street heading westbound in the alternate one-way street pattern of the downtown area, there have been calls for and discussions and research about returning it to two-way traffic, and I believe that analysis should continue,” Teresi told WRFA during his recent appearance on our Community Matters public affairs program.

Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi

But Teresi also said that converting Fourth Street into a two-way street is not something that he can simply recommend or that the city council can simply act on. He said an entire study would first need to take place to access downtown traffic patterns and what impact converting Fourth Street would have on those patterns. That would obviously cost money and it may take time for the city to receive the necessary funding that would be needed.

Still, the mayor said it’s probably a good idea to at least consider converting the street. “My general experience with one-way streets – except in the most congested, vehicle-heavy traffic situations – is that they have a dampening effect on pedestrian activity and also commerce and business activity,” Teresi said. “I think that it would be a good thing if eventually we could figure out a funding approach and take a look at returning Fourth St. to two-way traffic in most areas.”

Teresi added that even if a study were completed and funding was available to convert the street, the city would still need to receive permission from New York State because of Fourth Street’s relationship to Route 60, which intersects Fourth St. at Washington St.

The idea of converting Fourth St. into a two-way street was recently brought back into the spotlight by Jamestown Renaissance Corporation deputy director Peter Lombardi in an op-ed piece that appeared in the Jamestown Post-Journal in May. WRFA also spoke with Lombardi about the possibility.

Looking east on Fourth Street in downtown Jamestown, near its intersection with N. Main St. Since the 1970s, Fourth St. has been a three-lane, one-way thoroughfare through downtown. The JRC’s Peter Lombardi says the city should consider making the street two-way, which he believes would make it more inviting for economic development and related activity.

Jamestown Renaissance Corporation deputy director Peter Lombardi is advocating for changing Fourth Street from one-way to two-way, and believes Jamestown could learn from nearby Olean, which recently underwent an $8.8 million reconstruction project for its North Union Street.

Lombardi recently talked with WRFA’s Dennis Drew and said the effort in Olean not only renovated major sections of Union St., but also reconfigured what is basically the city’s primary downtown thoroughfare. Currently, Olean and the state are installing a brand new streetscape that, when completed, will feature roundabouts, bike lanes, landscaped medians, and a reduction in traffic lanes from four to two.

Lombardi said that all those changes to one of Olean’s most well-traveled streets will help to make the areas around it more inviting for economic development.

“It’s a great example of how the public sector can contribute to economic development,” Lombardi explained. “Other than the jobs created by the construction project itself, this new streetscape doesn’t produce jobs and it doesn’t produce businesses. But what it does is that it lays the groundwork for new businesses to relocate to downtown Olean, because it creates and environment where employees want to be and where businesses want to be.”

An artists drawing of what North Union Street will look like once the multimillion dollar street transformation project is completed.

Lombardi believes Jamestown may want to take a page from Olean’s playbook, and consider a similar project for Fourth Street – which is currently a one-way street four 14 blocks of downtown – from Prendergast Ave. west to Monroe St. He said that at the time it was turned into a one-way street, it made sense due to the amount of traffic in the downtown. But, Lombardi also added, that things are a lot different today.

“When it was converted to a one-way street 30 or 40 years ago, it carried a lot more traffic because during peak commute periods we had a lot of people moving back and forth across the city between factories and neighborhoods,” Lombardi said. “Today, less than 5,000 people use Fourth St. on a daily basis, and that’s a roadway that was really built for 15,000 to 20,000 vehicles each day.”

Lombardi said that Union Street in Olean currently carries twice as much traffic as Fourth Street in downtown Jamestown, yet has been able to successfully change from a four-lane to a two lane roadway, making the street slimmer, greener and more functional. He said that Fourth St. could see a similar change, but it’s not going to happen overnight.

“There were some ideas that came out of the Urban Design Plan the middle of the last decade for converting Fourth Street to two ways,” Lombardi said. “But what we need to do is raise the money to do some detailed engineering work so that you can go the extra step that Olean has taken, from going from a pretty-looking plan to an actual construction project. There are several planning and engineering steps that have to take place and with Fourth Street, we’ve been stuck with this early conceptual process for too long.”

Lombardi said that currently, JRC is trying to work with the city in identifying funding sources to not only take the idea of making Fourth Street a two-way street to the next level, but also making it an eventual reality.