The Municipal Services Committee met 09/25/2023. It was a mammoth 1 hour and 25 minute meeting with all but a couple of those minutes devoted to discussion regarding Resolution 10-R-22 which directed staff to explore removing the truck route designation from Lawe Street between College Avenue and Hancock Street.
During the process of planning the reconstruction project of Lawe Street, city staff did indeed investigate whether or not to remove the truck route designation. Additionally, staff held a listening session with residents in which they asked what about the truck route impacted them the most and whether there were features that could mitigate residents’ concerns about the truck route.
Staff eventually recommended that the truck route designation for Lawe Street remain, but the reconstruction project will still incorporate a number of pedestrian accommodations and traffic calming measures.
Several residents in the neighborhood along the truck route attended the meeting and spoke against maintaining the truck route. They cited safety concerns, general quality of life issues, and the impact of truck-caused pollution on their properties as reasons to remove the truck route designation.
The resolution itself did not actually call for the truck route designation to be removed, but rather for that option to be explored. Although the mandate of the resolution had, arguably already been performed by city staff, the committee voted to amend the resolution to ask staff to more specifically analyze tree management along the street, the cost/benefit of construction, destination/origin of trucks, traffic volume, specific traffic speed reduction efforts, and the environmental impact of the truck route. This amendment passed by a vote of 3-2 with Alderpersons Kristin Alfheim (District 11) and Chad Doran (District 15) voting against it. They believed that it was not feasible to remove the truck route designation and felt that the report already provided by staff was sufficient. The amended version of the resolution was then approved by the same 3-2 breakdown.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download.
The committee took 35 minutes of public comments.
Most of them were from residents in the neighborhood who wanted the truck route designation removed. Many of them cited safety concerns as a primary factor, and several of them mentioned Appvion, the manufacturing business near Lawe Street and Wisconsin Avenue, by name and identified it as a business whose trucks were well known to utilize Lawe Street.
Other issues cited were the wear and tear on the road, depreciated property values along the truck route, and the negative impact of truck emissions and vibrations on the historic properties along Lawe Street.
Andrew Dane, who serves on the City Plan Commission but was speaking as a private citizen, asked the question, “[S]hould we, as a community, willingly mix bicycles, kids, and semi-trucks in order to save a valued multinational corporation $200 a day? I think the answer may be ‘No.’” He estimated that it would cost Appvion $75,000 a year to switch to start utilizing 441 and Ballard as an alternate route to their building.
One resident proposed that Appvion build a new warehouse in the industrial park near Ballard and Northland. Another resident made what he termed “a modest proposal” which was that the city pay Appvion $75,000 a year to not drive their trucks along that road. “Hey, what’s that compared to a kid’s life? What’s it compared to the damage on our houses? What’s it compared to the quality of life of people in the neighborhood? The city of Appleton spends huge sums—corporate welfare to developers. I don’t want to open a can of worms. But I’m up for $75 grand a year to make sure we don’t have trucks barreling through a historic neighborhood, a block from a school, and past several churches. It would be a bargain.”
A mother told the committee her childen had lost friendships with children who lived on the other side of Lawe Street from them because it wasn’t safe to let her children run across the street on their own.
Allison Fleshman, an associate professor of chemistry at Lawrence University, cited a number of scientific papers that had been published regarding the impact of truck vibrations on residents and buildings. She seemed particularly concerned about the potential negative long-term affects of the trucks on homes. She didn’t think the trucks would hurt buildings over the next 15-20 years, but she wanted to see data on 200 and 300 years.
A new Appleton resident told the committee he had moved here from Salt Lake City two years ago “principally for the quality of the environment.” However, “having that truck route in perpetuity doesn’t improve the quality of my residential environment.” He also felt that the reconstruction plans for Lawe Street felt “as if we’re asking bicyclists be some kind of human traffic calming device, which makes me a little uncomfortable.”
A 30 year resident of the neighborhood told the committee it had changed over the years. “the neighborhood has become more family friendly. Families are growing up. It’s becoming more urban centric. And it would be very, very nice if we could have something that would just blossom into a beautiful residential area, where people would, of course, be able to get to know each other, to have block parties, to cross streets safely, to traverse between homes and schools. I mean that’s all wonderful things. And I hope that we do look at this proposal with—in more depth, because I think there are, there are some important aspects that are being overlooked.”
Kyle Jensen, the Vice President of Supply Chain at Appvion, said they understood and heard the residents. They were looking at ways to find compromise and believed they could continue to coexist with the residents. Appvion had proposed not running trucks at night to allow for reduced noise during those hours. They would also be open to other suggestions.
He did note that approximately 279 trucks go down Lawe Street a day, and Appvion only accounted for 16 of those. He also said that it would be far more dangerous in terms of safety to use highway 441 as a north/south route because the trucks would only have a short time to maneuver on the highway and would not be able to get up to speed. “So, there’s a safety concern that gets thrown around that I think is a little bit misguided in terms of especially when you want to transfer that safety, a real safety concern, to the highway, to the rest of the community. And that is a true danger.”
Additionally, they had been navigating this section of road for 30 years without incident. He had gone back through as many records as he could find and he could not find a pertinent safety incident.
After listening to public comments, the committee spent a good 40 minutes discussing the resolution. Alderperson Doran felt that there was no real action for staff to take in the resolution. He thought that staff could continue talking with Appvion without needing direction from the Common Council.
Other alderpersons on the committee did not want to shut down the conversation and felt there were still potentially things that could be discussed. Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) one of the authors of the resolution commented, “[M]aybe if we do allow these explorations to continue, a different recommendation might be arrived at.”
Alderperson Meltzer went on to say, “I do think that so far, the proposed compromise, as far as the input I’ve received, does not address enough of the community concerns. So, the way I see it, we have begun an exploration. But I feel that there’s still a lot more work to do, and also going to some of the other comments about different sorts of data that we don’t have in front of us that I think would be important to have so that we have the proper context for those conversations going forward.”
Alderperson Israel Del Toro (District 4) was the other co-author of the resolution. Although he was not a member of the committee, he did express a desire for staff to more fully investigate tree management along the street, the cost/benefit of construction, destination/origin of trucks, traffic volume, specific traffic speed reduction efforts, and the environmental impact of the truck route. Alderperson Meltzer ended up making a motion to amend the resolution to include those items, and the committee voted 3-2 to approve that amendment.
Alderpersons Alfheim and Doran were opposed to the amendment. In answer to questions from the committee, city staff reiterated their recommendation that the street remain a designated truck route. City traffic engineer Eric Lom mentioned that removing Lawe Street as a truck route would result in downtown College Avenue experiencing more truck traffic, and he believed that would be challenging. The increased use of College Avenue was also something that was mentioned in a letter from Appvion that was attached to the agenda.
Staff also wanted some clarification on the specifics of what they were being asked to review in terms of tree management and the truck route designation because, whether or not the street was designated as a truck route, the roadway would have to remain the same width in order to accommodate the bike lanes per the city’s agreement with the state on the project. Keeping the width the same was going to, inherently, result in the loss of trees.
Additionally, they wanted some clarification on what they were supposed to investigate regarding “environmental impact” because that was a big term that encompassed many things. Alderperson Del Toro suggested particulate matter emissions from existing traffic conditions, an analysis of heavy metals being deposited onto the roadway, and the deterioration of habitat and trees.
Alderperson Alfheim believed that there were probably many studies that concluded big trucks should not be used in cities, but Appleton was not in a position to not have truck routes. “I don’t believe it’s in our best interest to be driving a conversation that says we shouldn’t use trucks in the city. And that, in my opinion, is where this conversation is leading. And I’m not sure that that serves the city well to be going that route in today’s world.”
Alderperson Doran wanted to know how much the city was willing to spend on this. Additionally, he believed that the resolution was narrowly focused on one street, but they couldn’t look at that one street in a vacuum. The overall question was larger than that.
The committee voted 3-2 to approve the amended resolution, with Alderpersons William Siebers (District 1), Meltzer, and Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) voting in favor of it, and Alderpersons Alfheim and Doran voting against.
[It’s hard to see how removing the truck route designation from Lawe Street is practical. The City of Appleton does not seem to have very many truck routes. And if this was removed, the only route on the west side of the city connecting the north and south would be Highway 441. It seems like a big gap to go from Highway 441 to Richmond with nothing in between.
One doesn’t have to be a traffic engineer to see how removing Lawe Street as a truck route would likely increase truck traffic on College Avenue. But increasing truck traffic on College Avenue does not seem like it would be desirable because the city is trying to make downtown more pedestrian and bike friendly.
Finally, if the city explored this further and decided to remove the truck route designation from Lawe Street, it seems like that would most likely be a precursor to removing the truck route designations from other streets as well. The arguments that residents are making to remove it from Lawe Street could very easily be made for removing it from College Avenue as well. There are similar safety issues. Environmental impacts exist anywhere trucks drive. And, downtown College Avenue has changed a lot and many more residential buildings exist there now than in the past.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1119174&GUID=86B555A1-A2B7-4E30-95B4-B3F71A207559
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