Local commuters will soon see a traffic pattern change along one of the city’s main roadways.

Starting April 22, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation plans to institute a “road diet” along roughly two miles of Elmwood Avenue, from its intersection with Post Road in Warwick to the Park Avenue intersection in Cranston.

The change will involve the re-striping of the road to provide for a single lane in each direction and create a center turning lane.

“This allows through traffic to continue flowing unimpeded while left turning vehicles use the center turning lane,” reads a statement from RIDOT.

The new traffic pattern was originally scheduled to take effect April 15, but was delayed a week by weather. On Tuesday, Liz Pettengill, RIDOT’s communications director, said the re-striping work should not have a significant impact on commuters.

“There shouldn’t be much disruption at all,” she said.

RIDOT does caution that the schedule remains dependent on weather and subject to change.

In the long term, according to RIDOT, an analysis found that the implementation of the “road diet” will not result in delays on Elmwood Avenue. The agency cites the Federal Highway Administration’s findings that such traffic patterns “produce favorable results in terms of safety and operations on roads with 15,000 vehicles per day or fewer.”

“RIDOT has implemented road diets successfully for several years on roadways across Rhode Island,” the agency said in a statement. “They are recommended by the Federal Highway Administration and have proven to reduce crashes …Even accounting for small increases in traffic over time, the analysis showed traffic volumes less than 12,300 vehicles per day [in the affected area] through 2020, well below the threshold.”

Additionally, RIDOT plans to upgrade traffic signals along the affected portion of the Elmwood Avenue corridor, including a new signal at the Park Avenue intersection. Plans call for that signal to be in place and operational by late spring or early summer, according to the agency.