Greene Street to reopen as two-way traffic in downtown Greensboro by July 1

Greene Street is about to become easier to read for downtown drivers, but the change will also force a reset for anyone who has grown used to the one-way block between Bellemeade Street and W. Washington Street. The city says that stretch is expected to reopen to traffic in both directions on or before July 1, a move meant to reduce wrong-way driving and make the corridor feel less like an isolated piece of street design and more like part of downtown’s grid.

The conversion will come with two lanes southbound and one lane northbound, along with updated access for the nearby parking deck entrances. City traffic guidance says the left lane will be for left turns only, while the right lane will allow turns either way. Officials expect that setup to make downtown travel more intuitive for drivers moving between Bellemeade Street, W. Washington Street and the surrounding center city blocks.

Most of the work left on the Greene Street streetscape project is cosmetic and marking-related. The city says crews still need to install asphalt stamping for 21 decorative crosswalks and finish thermoplastic pavement markings and symbols. The new traffic signals for the opposite direction are already installed, and they will be activated when the street is switched to two-way operation.

The change lands at a sensitive moment for downtown parking. The Bellemeade Street Parking Deck, once a major resource with roughly 1,200 spaces, closed after being found structurally unsound and later was slated for demolition. That closure has already altered routines for downtown businesses, Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts patrons and eventgoers who once relied on that deck. Greene Street’s conversion is intended to help steady circulation around that loss and improve access to nearby destinations.

The project has been in the works for years. A public meeting was held in January 2019, and city planning materials later listed construction drawings for spring 2022, construction beginning in spring 2024 and completion in 2026. Greensboro says the broader goal is to improve safety, accessibility, connectivity and traffic flow downtown, while the Downtown Transportation Study continues to examine other corridors inside the Downtown Greenway loop and weigh short- and long-term transportation fixes. For longtime Greensboro residents who remember when Greene Street was two-way before, the change will feel familiar. For everyone else, July 1 will mark a major shift in how downtown moves.