KALAMAZOO, Mich. (WOOD) — If you’ve driven through downtown Kalamazoo, you may have noticed all the one-way streets. One of those streets, Michigan Avenue, is a major highway, M-43.
Though any changes to Kalamazoo’s Michigan Avenue are a ways off, people are already talking about what the switching it to a two-way road could mean.
Most days, you can find Mike Rappleye working behind the counter at Bimbo’s Pizza downtown. He's been the manager there for about six years. He said customers can find it difficult to navigate the roads.
"One of the things we see literally all day long is … people going south on Pitcher (Street), they take a right turn and they go backwards down the one-way street,” he explained. “We see it every day.”
That one-way street is Michigan Avenue/M-43. It feeds directly into downtown from the east as a three-lane, one-way street. Those traveling west are directed onto a one-way street heading west, Kalamazoo Avenue.