Actually traffic didn't really move elsewhere. This road was never overly congested but it is a main artery between 2nd and Merle Hay. Now that they've done t

Actually traffic didn't really move elsewhere. This road was never overly congested but it is a main artery between 2nd and Merle Hay. Now that they've done this stupidity you either travel about a mile out of your way to go to another main artery or you just deal with it. When this was a 4 lane road it was not very wide, there was no shoulder only a curb and probably met the bare minimum for acceptable lane width. So people naturally drove the speed limit or a little slower. Now that they've reduced it to a two-lane street with a middle turning lane the lanes are very much wider. Wider lanes make people more comfortable at going fast a middle turn lane someone turning left is no longer blocking a lane of traffic while they wait to turn left. So it absolutely makes sense that people are more comfortable driving a little bit faster and a little bit over the speed limit than they were before. The stupidity of the city planners in Des Moines is just amazing. The idea to remove a major artery that connects one half of the city to the other when the only options are something more than a mile out of your way is stupidity of the highest order. Especially when thinking that this is going to cause people to slow down or take another route. In order for people to take another route that doesn't go past large residential sections you have to first provide the alternate path which doesn't exist.