The Municipal Services Committee met 11/22/2021. Around 30 minutes out of the entire 46-minute meeting was taken up with the design hearing for future pavement projects on Lawrence, Oneida, Morrison, and Durkee streets (roughly the area around Soldier’s Square and the YMCA) in downtown Appleton. The Department of Public Works is proposing doing underground utility improvements in 2022. Typically, streets are then reconstructed the year after the underground work has been performed, but a city staffer stated during the meeting that they were not exactly sure when the above ground work would happen.
Design hearings generally tend to be fairly short, but this is a large project in the heart of the Central Business District, so it took some time to present the project to the committee and for the committee to discuss it. This was just the design hearing, so no action was taken.
A city staffer explained that, in his time at the city, this was probably the biggest project the city had taken on short of College Avenue itself, so they wanted to make sure that the design they presented was forward thinking and consistent with what they thought the community wanted. The design was the culmination of the change in how they looked at the Central Business district with more of a focus on mobility, accessibility, and bike and pedestrian safety. Additionally, they wanted to make it be a place that people enjoyed being.
He gave a little history of how they got to this point.
2010 – They went through an extensive public involvement process regarding the on-street bike lane plan. That was one of the first steps the community took toward recognizing the importance of not just how vehicles moved around but how people in general moved around.
2015 – They started working on the Downton Appleton Mobility Plan which included recommendations to convert many of the one-way streets in the Central Business District to two-way streets, particularly to realign Appleton Street and also to realign Lawrence Street.
2017 – The city’s Comprehensive Plan was updated and included an emphasis on walkability, placemaking, accessibility, mobility, and fostering a culture of walking and biking.
2021 – The Downtown Streetscape Design Guide was approved unanimously by the Common Council. It focused, at a smaller level, on how the city could improve things such as mobility and some of those other items in their mobility and comprehensive plans.
The Streetscape Design Guide included guidance on how to treat arterial streets and side street. It focused on mobility and “right sizing” the streets which, in many cases resulted in shrinking the street because they were overside and encouraged speeding. They could then reallocate some of that space to improve the pedestrian experience through things such as
- Bump Outs
- Raised Intersections
- Bike Racks
- Waste and Recycling Receptacles
- Benches
- Improved Signage and Pavement Markings
- Adding trees
- Smaller Radii At Intersections
Regarding the smaller radii at intersections, he noted that the tighter the radius was the slower the speed at which a vehicle would turn, but there were some other drawbacks such as an increased difficulty of plowing the intersection during the winter.
He said they were also looking at midblock crosswalks at some locations where they know pedestrians are going to cross whether there are crosswalks or not. He said that they had come to understand better that there are places that pedestrians naturally want to cross and, short of installing barbed wire, they would not be able to make pedestrians cross elsewhere. So, instead of trying to stop them, they wanted to decrease vehicle speeds and create a safer interaction between vehicles and pedestrians.
They also wanted to install back-in angle parking on the block adjacent to the YMCA. As its name would suggest, drivers are supposed to drive past these parking spots and then back into them so that the front of their cars are facing toward the street and the back of their cars are toward the curb. This improves visibility when pulling into the street which, in particular, improves safety for bicycle riders. It also shunts children toward the sidewalk when they are exiting the vehicle instead of toward the street and makes it easier to load and unload things from the trunk. He stated that the biggest drawback was that it was different and change can be painful. There were also concerns that people would pull in head first into the stalls from the opposite lane, but he thought they could overcome those issues.
A different staff member named Jason reviewed the details of the street reconstruction design. Essentially, they wanted all the streets to have two lanes with one lane going in each direction. This would involve turning Morrison and Durkee Streets into two-way streets since they are currently one-way street. Both those streets would also have shared bike lanes on both sides. With the exception of the block next to the YMCA with the back-in parking stalls, the streets would include parallel parking.
The water mains under those streets were all very old and very small so they will work to upgrade and replace them in 2022 ahead of the pavement project which would come in 2023 or beyond. He said they weren’t exactly sure on the timing of that.
He said they were planning to install raised intersections at the intersections of Lawrence/Oneida, Lawrence/Morrison, and Lawrence/Durkee as traffic calming measures.
On all of the streets they would look at adding streetscape elements such as colored and stamped concrete in the terrace areas, trees, benches, and decorative lighting.
Overall, the paving projects were estimates to cost as follows:
- Lawrence Street – $900,000
- Oneida Street – $400,000
- Morrison Street – $620,000
- Durkee Street – $725,000
He then opened things up for questions.
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) who is the committee chair asked if anyone in the audience wanted to speak or ask questions about this, but nobody wanted to, so he opened things up for committee members and non-committee alderpersons who were present.
Alderperson Michael Smith (District 10) liked the layout and design. He noted that at some intersections the city has flashing lights installed and he wondered if there was a significant cost difference between installing flashing lights vs installing raised intersections. He also wanted to know if lights were going to be installed in the raised intersections.
A city staffer answered that there are different ways to create a traffic calming affect whether it be through narrowed lanes or vertical components. They were learning that vertical elements tend to be more effective than non-vertical elements. So, they could put a striped line across the street and it may or may not have a big effect on how a pedestrian/vehicle interaction happens.
He said the raised intersections would not have any extra flashing lights. The vertical component and the markings that go with it would be the things that made it work. He also didn’t think that, on a reconstruction project, there would be any significant added cost to installing a raised intersection although it would involve a little extra hand-work.
Jason said that typically a contractor could run their paving machine down a street being reconstructed through several intersections along the entire length of the project. With a raised intersection, they would have to stop the machine, skip the intersection, and then come back and do the intersections because they are at a different elevation. Material-wise, it wouldn’t make any difference, but common sense said that the cost of the project might be increased by a little bit because there was more hand-work involved than if the paving machine could run through the entire length of the project.
Alderperson Denise Fenton asked if the midblock crosswalks would be signal controlled.
A staffer answered that the plans as presented did not include flashing yellow lights. There would be markings and signs not dissimilar to what currently exists on Appleton Street between the Red Ramp and Houdini Plaza, although that crosswalk includes a raised median which these would not. They were concerned about adding flashing lights, not because of cost, but because there are traffic signals nearby and they didn’t want the flashing lights distracting from those.
Alderperson Fenton asked if any consideration had been given to not having parking on both sides of Morrison and Durkee so that there would be room for a dedicated bike lane instead of a shared lane.
The staffer answered that there had been thought given to that.
Alderperson Fenton noted that there were bike lanes on other nearby streets, but this particular area was a no man’s land for bikes.
Alderperson Firkus observed that there were bicycle lanes on Morrison Street north of Washington Street but then those lanes ended for these last few blocks of Morrison.
A staffer was impressed he had noticed that and said they actually spent a decent amount of time considering the issue of bike lanes on Morrison. The city’s original bike lane plan does show bike lanes on those streets, but there were a number of considerations that went into them eventually not putting them into the plan. Whether or not a bike lane is put on a street is a matter of how much traffic there is and how fast that traffic is going. That is why the city doesn’t put bike lanes on every residential street because they simply aren’t needed.
There are competing needs in the Central Business District. It was possible to install bike lanes on those blocks, but that would come at the expense of parking right in the middle of the downtown. They were doing many other things to calm the traffic such as raised intersections and lane narrowing. When they spoke to their mobility consultant about the bike lanes, the mobility expert told them that most central business districts would have shared lanes because it ended up being the greater good in terms of bikes served vs other people being served. Also, the traffic speed there was quite slow because there was a stop sign on one end and a traffic light on the other. Bikes should be able to mix in well with that 15 MPH traffic. In the end, they decided that it would overall serve the greater good to simply have shared bike lanes.
Alderperson Firkus said that, as a biker, he’s not a fan of shared bike lanes. He doesn’t think drivers pay attention to them. But overall, he thought the reconstruction plan was fantastic and the walkability detail was outstanding. Overall, he was happy and excited about it.
The staffer agreed that, on their own, shared bike lanes are 100% worthless, but in this scenario, they are not by themselves and the overall street design does control vehicle speed in other ways.
Alderperson Firkus pointed out that, ultimately, this was just a matter of paint on the road so it wouldn’t be particularly difficult or cost prohibitive to change the markings at a later date if they decided they wanted to eliminate parking and create dedicated bike lanes. He did understand what the staffer was saying regarding traffic control.
The staffer also pointed out that traffic flow was affected by the changes the city has made. Prior to Appleton Street being made a 2-way street again, a lot of the people coming north across the bridge were being forced to go past the YMCA and then work their way back to where they wanted to be. Now, however, they can simply continue straight on Appleton Street so the traffic changes have effectively created an area where people aren’t going to be cutting through and will only be going on if their destination is in that area.
Alderperson Firkus asked about the cul de sac at the end of Durkee Street. He said there used to be more houses abutting that area, but not it looked like the Colman Hall building was the only building being served. He wondered if there had been some consideration given to vacating that street and allowing Lawrence University to have a driveway through part of that as needed.
Director of Public Works Paula Vandehey said they did consider that, but the challenge with street vacations is that the street is divided down the middle with half going to the property on one side and half going to the property on the other side. Colman Hall would have only ended up with 30 feet which might not have been enough room for a road and sidewalk. They also weren’t really sure what was going to happen on the other property (which is currently owned by US Venture), so that’s why they didn’t want to do a street vacation.
Alderperson Smith asked if the raised intersections were feathered down on the outsides so that bike riders didn’t have to go over them also. Or were they raised all across?
A staffer told him that he could email him some photos. The entire intersection would be lifted up about 4 inches with slopes coming up to in on all approaches. A bicycle going 10-15 MPH was not going to be impacted by that. The main purpose was to slow down cars because that increase was going to be uncomfortable at 25 MPH. It would also put pedestrians and cars on the same level which would help change how those interactions go.
He mentioned that there was something of an example over by the USA Youth Sports Complex on Providence Avenue.
Alderperson Smith thanked him for that answer.
Alderperson Firkus put out one last call for comments or feedback but no one had anything else to say. He said that he thought the design looked fantastic and he thanked city staff for presenting it to the committee.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=897660&GUID=DBA5022D-E5DF-47F2-85EC-1691027DBA72
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