Traffic alert: Expect disruption on East Grace Street from 4th Street to 9th Street in Downtown for two months.

The reason: Five blocks of Grace Street are being transformed from a one-way street to two-way, the Department of Public Works announced this week.

The cost: $376,000, mostly to change traffic lights, but also to pay for re-marking the pavement and other associated costs, department spokeswoman Sharon North said Monday. The city and state are splitting the cost, she said.

Grace Street between 4th and Belvidere streets is to be converted from one-way to two-way when “funding becomes available,” she said.

The move represents the first step in implementing the city’s 2013 strategic transportation plan — an update to the approved 2008 Downtown Master Plan that called for changing the one-way street patterns in Downtown to two-way to make the city more walkable and to make it easier for drivers to get around.

In addition to Grace Street, the 2013 plan called for conversion of Marshall Street to two-way between Belvidere Street and 9th Street; of Clay Street between Belvidere and 3rd streets; of 1st Street between Canal and Duval streets; and of 2nd Street between Main and Duval streets. Duval Street borders Interstate 95.

Other major streets in Downtown, such as Franklin, Main and Cary, are to remain one way, according to the transportation plan.

Previously, the only conversion to two-way has been on Marshall Street between 7th and 9th streets. That change, though, resulted from the opening of the temporary GRTC bus transfer center and the closure of a portion of 7th Street rather than the Downtown plan. — jeremy M. Lazarus