Bike route on Grove

The interesting thing about the new, slightly behind schedule bike route on Grove is that it's not primarily about bicycles or bicyclists; it's about "traffic calming". The bicycle lane is a bonus, a pleasant side effect. Grove does not appear to have been planned as a bike route for the purpose of building good, usable bike routes. But there is a strip of area between the parked cars and the now-single-lane road; the result of traffic calming efforts. Let's call it a bicycle path! Ok, I'll take it. I'm glad it's there. Bicycling along Grove has been pretty scary at night, even with my dayglo gear and LED lights. So far I have only seen my wife and I cycling on Grove. Perhaps that will change with the new lane in place.

Apparrently there have been longstanding concerns that there is too much traffic on Grove and that traffic drives too fast. I have only lived directly off and driven on Grove for 1.5yrs so I am no expert on the matter. I have not personally seen evidence that traffic on Grove is excessive or dangerous but I will assume the longer-term residents have seen otherwise. The city's traffic planners called Grove a 'major thoroughfare" and "arterial" in 1962. Now it is referred to as a "major collector street". How much traffic, one wonders, should a street like that carry?

Here is my take on the traffic problems, if there are any exceptional ones, on Grove:
1. drivers rolling through stop signs when there is no cross traffic
2. difficulty of getting through the Grove/Centennial lights. This is intentionally caused by the traffic calming scheme. Does it deter non-residents from using Grove? Maybe. But it also makes it difficult to get back to one's house off Grove after shopping across the street at Highland Terrace's closest grocery store, Kroger.
3. it is not possible to enter Woodhaven Grove park going southbound on Grove; you can only access it by going through the problematic Grove/Centennial intersection. I have seen cars drive the wrong way down the divided end of Grove to get into the park.
4. Southbound traffic on Grove backed up from the Grove/Centennial lights far enough that they block the Grove/Summit intersection.
5. Southbound traffic on Grove that would like to turn right on red trapped in a single lane behind people that want to continue south on Audelia. A curved right turn lane (yield only e, not subject to the Grove/Centennial light) carved out of the unused, grassy SW corner of the intersection would alleviate that problem, and alleviate the backup noted in #4.

See a pattern here? I think the Grove/Centennial intersection is deeply flawed.