The Common Council met 10/04/2023. Five members of the public spoke during the time of public participation. They all spoke about Resolution 10-R-22 which calls for city staff to investigate removing the truck route designation from Lawe Street between College Avenue and Hancock Street. The Council did not, however, take up the resolution that evening because Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) referred it back to the Municipal Services Committee for further discussion.
The item had already been discussed and voted on at the 09/25/2023 Municipal Services Committee meeting. The committee voted to amend the resolution to require staff to complete by March 2024:
- An analysis of deterioration of Lawe Street terrace habitat and trees due to trucks.
- A cost benefit analysis of construction.
- An origin/destination study.
- A traffic volume report.
- An outline of specific traffic speed reduction efforts.
- An environmental impact assessment to include truck particulate matter emissions and a heavy metal analysis that are being deposited into the roadway.
In responses to the amended version that was approve by the committee, city staff submitted an updated memo. Although they could not address all of the items, they were able to address some.
They note that from 2018-2022 there were 0 truck-involved crashes on Lawe Street that resulted in fatal injuries, suspected serious injuries, or suspected minor injuries. They also point out that, although air quality and noise analysis were not required under the environmental documentation for the project, there were a number of environmental documents items that were required by Federal and State agreement that were available for review.
Importantly, staff highlighted the fact that removing the truck route designation from Lawe Street could affect the roadway classification for Lawe Street. The Lawe Street reconstruction project had qualified for $2.8 million in grants because it was classified as a minor arterial roadway. Removing the truck route classification “could have consequences on the functional classification of the roadway resulting in the loss of funding.”
Alderperson Siebers indicated that his understanding was that the authors of the resolution were going to introduce an additional amendment to the resolution at the Council meeting. He preferred to discuss an amendment at the committee-level, so referred it back.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download.
Before it was referred back, five members of the public spoke.
One resident expressed concern that removing the truck route designation would cause Appvion to leave Appleton.
Two Appvion representatives spoke.
Kyle Jensen, the Vice President of Supply Chain, noted that approximately 9,000 vehicles drive down Lawe Street on any given day. Only 279 of them (3.1% of overall traffic) are considered large trucks that would be affected by the removal of the truck route designation. Of those 279, Appvion trucks accounted for only 0.3%.
Removing the trucks would not solve the overall safety issues which were a result of traffic volume. Additionally, trucks were not speeding and Appvion had no accidents on record [or at least not of the type residents were concerns about.] “More importantly, this opens up a precedent through the city that you can cherry pick truck routes. We start cherry picking truck routes, and we start overloading those truck routes left, you’re gonna cause a real concern, and a real safety issue through the city.”
Chief Operating Officer Graem Hodson clearly stated that Appvion was not going to leave Appleton. He did say there was a cost to Appvion having to reroute those trucks. During the Municipal Services Committee meeting, Andrew Dane a Lawe Street property owner who also serves on the City Plan Commission, had speculated it would cost Appvion $75,000 a year to reroute their trucks. Mr. Hodson addressed that claim specifically and said it would actually be quite a bit higher than that. He also pointed out that 90% of the trucks who use Lawe Street are not Appvion trucks, and rerouting all of them would also have costs to those other businesses.
He did say that Appvion was willing to not run trucks down Lawe Street from 10PM to 5AM so residents could have peaceful sleeping hours. They were also open to other potential actions.
One neighborhood resident felt that Lawe Street was a wall due to the traffic volume and the trucks. She “would love to have low volume of traffic would love to see that corridor between Drew streets and Lawe street more open so that our kids could get to Edison school without it being a big issue.”
Andrew Dane thought there were viable alternate routes on Wisconsin, Ballard, Northland, Richmond, and Calumet, all of which were 4 lane roads, and he speculated that many trucks that used Lawe Street did so out of habit. He felt the city should try to preserve and enhance the historic neighborhoods in downtown Appleton. “We can add more housing down here. We can create really amazing, walkable neighborhoods.” He also thought since trucks wouldn’t be able to use Lawe Street during construction anyway, they could use that as a test to see how it worked out and then make a long-term decision after construction was completed.
[The amended version of this resolution would seem to be the third resolution this year that, if passed, could carry with it serious repercussions, legal or financial, to the city. The proposals in the anti-pesticide resolution were almost completely illegal, the bird safe glass resolution was also potentially illegal and basic questions about how it would impact housing and the economy in Appleton were left unanswered, and now this resolution, if it leads to the truck route designation being removed, could result in the city losing $2.8 million in grant funding for a major reconstruction project.
Per the Common Council’s own rules, “Council members are encouraged to work with staff before introducing Resolutions in order to ensure that Resolutions are well-researched and ready for debate.” It is interesting to see how some Council members have interpreted that rule.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1114840&GUID=AEE88530-319B-4909-B769-B379610CE326
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