The Municipal Services Committee met 02/06/2023. Most of the meeting was taken up with a discussion about the possible lane-reconfiguration of College Avenue. During the 01/23/2023 committee meeting, city staff had presented the idea of re-striping downtown College Avenue between State Street and Drew Street, changing it from a 4-lane street (two lanes in each direction) to 3 lanes (one lane in each direction and a turn lane down the center). Parking would remain the same but bike lanes would be added on either side of the street between the parked cars and driving lanes.
Although the presentation was given to the committee on 01/23, the meeting time ran out before alderpersons were able to ask questions, so the item was back before the committee on 02/06 so that a more thorough discussion could take place.
I’ve prepared a complete transcript of the discussion for your downloading pleasure.
There was some discussion about the what the next steps in this process would be because there is currently no action item for the committee to vote on, and there will be no item to vote on until this spring when a contract with a company to perform the restriping is submitted for a vote. Somewhat confusingly, although the information about the re-striping was brough to the Municipal Services Committee, staff thought that any contract would in fact be brought to the Finance Committee for approval. Alderperson William Siebers (District 1), expressed some concern that the concept of reconfiguring College Avenue would not be voted on until an actual contract was brought forward. Director of Public Works Danielle Block told him that if there was not enough desire to move forward with the project, they would not put out a bid for the contract because doing so would not be a good use of staff resources and time; however, at no point was it explained how staff would determine if there was not enough will to move forward or what the deadline for reaching that determination would be.
One item of particular note was the claim that this lane reconfiguration would reduce drag-racing on College Avenue. More than one member of the public had looked somewhat incredulously at the idea that drag racing was happening on College Avenue, and, frankly, it was a little funny. The term conjures up images of College Avenue being overrun with giant 1950s cars driven by teens who use slang like “Daddio” a lot and think letter jackets are cool, or, alternatively, people’s relaxing outdoor dining experiences being interrupted by Vin Diesel-like meat-heads shooting through the downtown corridor like rockets after they’ve hit the nitro button on their dashboard.
The reality, however, is much tamer. The Appleton Police Department does not have any sort of statistics regarding how often drag racing occurs on College Avenue. Police Captain Gary Lewis told the committee, “Our issue is when you get volumes of traffic, it becomes difficult to make those types of stops. And so, we won’t necessarily have measurable data that says we’re doing X number of reckless driving stops down there because it’s just it’s difficult to get down there to do it.” He did, however, speak anecdotally, and told the committee that just the week before he had stopped two drivers who were going 40MPH down College Avenue at 9 in the morning. He also noted that the pavement markings at the intersections would indicate that vehicles are squealing their tires which was further evidence that drag racing was occurring. Essentially, it sounded as if drag racing in the classic sense was not occurring, but drivers were speeding recklessly through downtown.
The Police Department is supportive of the lane reconfiguration because they believe it will enhance pedestrian safety and help reduce some of the noise and negative driver behavior that have been ongoing issues downtown and which Captain Lewis stressed they would not be able to police their way out of. Beyond that, the addition of the bike lanes would make it easier for police to enforce the rule against bikes and scooters on the sidewalk. Captain Lewis explained, “[I]t’s difficult for us to enforce something when we’re asking people to go into traffic with vehicles driving right next to them. With a bike lane put into place, it would be much easier and tolerable to be able to then start issuing those types of citations and enforcing that ordinance because we know there’s a safer place for them to be on because we’ve established that route of travel for them.”
The Fire Department was, likewise, supportive of the change noting that the addition of a center turn lane would make it easier for them to drive emergency vehicles through downtown, given that with the current lane configuration vehicles do not always get out of the way like they should.
There was discussion about some of the concerns raised by community members such as bicyclists getting hit by doors being opened by parked cars, traffic getting backed-up whenever someone needed to parallel park, and College Avenue businesses being negatively impacted by the change.
City Traffic Engineer Eric Lom told the committee that bike lanes in the city had improved safety, and they would view the addition of bike lanes on College Avenue as a positive. “We may have a couple more bike related crashes related to this, but it might be because more because there’s more bikes than because it’s less safe.” The bike lanes that would be going in would be “unprotected” lanes in between traffic and the parked cars. Alderperson Israel Del Toro (District 4) asked about the feasibility of putting the bike lanes between the parked cars and the curbs, but staff said doing that would be extremely expensive because they would have to remove all of the sidewalk bump-outs that currently exist at each of the intersections.
Some feedback had involved concern that traffic would get backed up behind any car that was trying to park; however, Traffic Engineer Lom pointed out that parallel parking maneuvers would mostly take place in the 6 foot wide bike lanes that are directly next to the parking lanes. Between the bike lane and the center turn lane, there would be room for vehicles to move around a car that was in the process of parking.
Jennifer Stephany the Executive Director of Appleton Downtown Incorporated laid out some of the concerns that business owners had about the potential change. Those included worry about traffic congestion during special events and Performing Arts Center shows and whether the lane changes would divert traffic away from downtown and decrease business. There was also a general feeling that business owners had not been told about this proposal ahead of time or been given a chance to talk about it. Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) mentioned that when he read about other communities that had done this sort of lane reconfiguration, streets with bike lanes ended up seeing increased business traffic as opposed to streets that did not have bike lanes.
The committee discussion also included an overview of what had led staff to bring forward this recommendation. Per Director Block, “This project and this concept came about in regards to citizen feedback, business owner feedback, and inter departmental feedback on College Avenue corridor complaints whether that be related to traffic noise, experience as you’re a pedestrian walking or sitting on the amenity strip, the differential in speeds along College Avenue, and the types of driving behavior we were experiencing.”
An Appleton resident spoke at the meeting and brought up the fact that the 2016 Mobility Study had written off a lane reconfiguration due to unacceptable traffic operations on College Avenue. Traffic Engineer Lom explained that consideration of a 4 lane to 3 lane conversion had been tacked onto the Mobility Study somewhat as an afterthought, and the consultants had done only a cursory review of that. At the time of the study, Appleton Street was still a one-way only street, and downtown had changed in a number of other ways since that study. “But I think what has changed the most isn’t the model output. It’s the–sort of the equation, and the equation is the pros versus the cons. And at that time we didn’t really understand what all the pros were. We didn’t have scooters, yet. We didn’t have a lot of the things happening downtown that are happening now. And so, what we were really just looking at was the cons at that point and saying, ‘Well, yeah, this adds congestion.’ And with not as big of a list to offset that, the decision, the Council decided not to pursue it.”
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) mentioned that she had been the chair of the Safety and Licensing Committee last year. During the pandemic, overall traffic downtown had decreased but there had been a large increase in reckless driving. Additionally, alderpersons were fielding complaints from the business community and residents about how people were not able to enjoy the amenity strip on College Avenue due to noise, bicycles, and scooters.
She also noted that her family personally was a bicycling family, but they would not go downtown because they did not feel safe riding there without bike lanes. Typically, they go to Menasha or Neenah. She would like to be able to go to downtown Appleton also, and they would do so if bike lanes existed on College Avenue.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1078646&GUID=10C7FB47-DA0D-431B-A9FC-3064E48DE414
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