PHOENIX — A Valley nonprofit says reverse lanes are partially responsible for vehicle collisions in Phoenix.
“We all know these roads as suicide lanes and now we have concrete data to back up that assertion," said Prakshal Jain, Vice President of Strong Towns PHX.
As ABC15 previously reported, the city installed reverse lanes on 7th Ave. and 7th St. more than 40 years ago to address traffic concerns in the area.
But, according to Strong Towns' research, streets with reverse lanes have twice as many crashes than similar roads in the area.
“The community continues to suffer, and the next steps will be going with legal liability because now that the data is out there – if the city doesn’t react to this – the next crashes are on them," said Jeremy Thacker, a Trustee with Strong Towns PHX.
Jain and Thacker used data from ADOT and the Federal Highway Administration to study traffic collisions between 2001 and 2022.
The group told ABC15 the reverse lanes have a higher crash rate, increased economic damage, and a severe impact on non-motorists.
Initially, the group planned on looking for ways to make the roads safer but ultimately decided the city should remove the reverse lanes before more people get hurt.
"We're allowing this to happen right now," said Thacker.
"We're gaining nothing from the reverse lanes anymore," he added.
At least one business owner agrees.
Bill Sandweg owns Copper Star Coffee and says the reverse lanes made more sense in previous years.
"There was a lot of people going downtown for work," he said.
"Since then, we grew the central corridor...we've certainly seen lots of business move out of downtown," Sandweg added.
Sandweg said he's lived in the Valley 'between the 7's' for 28 years.
“We owe it to ourselves and we owe it to our community to get rid of these and restore normal traffic to the 7’s," he said.
ABC15 reached out to the city of Phoenix.
A spokesperson with the streets department referred the station to a 2021 report that claimed removing the lanes would create significant delays.
However, officials with Strong Town PHX disagree with that because every crash causes some kind of delay.
The group tells ABC15 they plan to present their findings to the city in the near future.
Without changes, they said, more people could get hurt or, even worse, die.
"That's what we hope to eliminate here – get rid of fatal crashes," said Jain.
"Get rid of injury crashes, get rid of any crashes at all," he added.