Municipal Services Committee Votes Unanimously To Approve Design Parameters As Proposed By Staff For Morrison Street Reconstruction Project

The Municipal Services Committee met 11/20/2023. The item they spent the most amount of time discussing was the design parameters for the Morrison Street reconstruction project between Glendale Avenue and Pershing Street. The proposed design included

• New asphalt pavement and concrete curb and gutter constructed to a width of 27’ from back of curb to back of curb, which is 6’ narrower than the existing street (33’) within this portion of the project.
• Curb extensions (narrowing of the pavement) constructed at Marquette St to serve as traffic calming.
• Traffic calming circle constructed at the intersection with Lindbergh Street.
• Existing on-street parking would be restricted along the west side of Morrison Street, within the project limits.

Three residents of the neighborhood spoke on the item. They did not necessarily oppose the reconstruction of the street but in general, they wanted the design to remain the same as it currently was. They did not like the proposed traffic circle, the narrowing of the street, or the loss of parking on one side. They did not understand what the purpose of traffic calming measures was because speeding was not a problem on the street.

The committee considered their concerns and discussed the issues with staff, then voted unanimously to approve the design parameters without any changes.

I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download.

Overall, because of the narrowing of the street, the project was estimated to cost $85,000 less than what it would cost if it remained the same width. Additionally, the narrower street would result in lower maintenance costs over subsequent years.

The question was raised about the possibility of simply doing a similar project in a neighborhood that actively wanted their street reconstructed, but it would cost more to plan a new project, and, beyond that, the section along Morrison Street had older sewers and watermains dating to the 1940’s and 1950’s that needed to be replaced.

There was a fair amount of discussion regarding the choices to work various traffic calming measures into the project, such as the narrowing of the street and the traffic calming circle at Morrison and Lindbergh. Traffic Engineer Eric Lom was upfront about the fact that they did not have data to suggest there was a speeding problem along that particular stretch of street. However, they were looking at best practices, and the current best practice was that when a street was reconstructed that they try to improve the design and layout whether there were specific issues in the neighborhood or not. They did this because streets were typically only reconstructed once every four generations, and it was most cost effective to install alterations to the design and layout at that time. For example, the traffic calming circle added only a nominal cost to the reconstruction project, but would cost more if it were done outside of the reconstruction project.

Additionally, although there was not a speeding issue on Morrison, the general area did have two schools and a park and even the residents felt there was speeding issues on Lindbergh. The residents suggested installing a stop sign or having the Police Department post an officer in the area to ticket speeders. However, the Police Department did not have the manpower to put an officer there routinely, and stop signs were not considered best practice to slow down traffic.

The committee ended up voting 5-0 to approve the design parameter as proposed by city staff.

View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1137900&GUID=96BF1498-1301-4ACF-97F6-1935D374B2FF