HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) – Watch for changes to the traffic flow in downtown Huntsville soon. The city is preparing to change some of the one-way streets back to two-way. The move is intended to make the downtown area more user-friendly.

The first of the streets to be changed back to a two-way street will be Clinton Avenue. The city has already installed new traffic lights designed to handle the two-way traffic.

“As we go from being an office center downtown to being a retail center downtown, with restaurants and lots of boots on the ground, people walking around and everything else, we need to recognize we probably need to change with that,” according to Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle.

Our news partners The Huntsville Times and AL.com report city planners believe the change will actually make portions of downtown more accessible, whereas the one-way streets were originally intended to move traffic out of town quicker. With new retail and residential developments coming in, Mayor Battle says the goal is to draw people into the downtown area and keep them here to shop and enjoy what Huntsville has to offer. But not everyone is looking forward to the change.

“I’ve gotten accustomed to them being one-way downtown. I like the way the traffic flows, especially here in the core part of downtown,” Huntsville resident James Robinson tells us.

Mayor Battle says altering the traffic flow should enhance the area’s changing atmosphere as downtown Huntsville changes from a heavy office and business environment to a more retail and residential area. The city will make the changes in steps, with Clinton changing first, followed by Holmes Avenue. After that, the city will take a look at Greene and Lincoln Streets.