Municipal Services Committee Receives Overview Of New Complete Streets Policy, Design Guide, And Pedestrian Crossing Toolkit

On 02/29/2024 from 6-8 pm, the City of Appleton is holding a virtual open house and community input meeting on the Complete Streets Study. This study was completed by Alta Planning and Design and was intended to consolidate a number of existing street and pedestrian related policies into one overarching policy and provide direction on where to focus attention on future street and sidewalk infrastructure projects and improvements.

You can view information and the draft policy and sign up to attend the virtual meeting here: https://www.appleton.org/government/public-works/complete-streets-study

On 02/12/2024, the Municipal Services Committee received a presentation on the new proposed policy.

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

Complete-Streets-Municipal-Services-Committee-on-2024-02-12-Transcript.PDF Download

Additionally, here is a copy of the slide deck that was shown to the committee:

MSC-2-12-24-ALTA-Presentation.PDF Download

The Alta representatives indicated the purpose of the study was to update the city’s Complete Streets Policy, create a Complete Streets Design Guide, and update the city’s approach to handling pedestrian crossings.

Input they received from stakeholders indicated:

Safety for all ages and abilities is a high priority across stakeholders
Strong consensus to calm traffic and support transportation options
Desire to prioritize within budget constraints and plan for maintenance
Increased staff coordination is seen as beneficial
Context is important: commercial, developed, and new residential areas
Standout value: shared commitment to youth and education

The new policy would priority safety and mobility for the most vulnerable road users, would reflect the context of different streets including roadway classification and land use, prioritize projects that served specific functions (such as filling in pedestrian and bicycle networks, serving “vulnerable users,” and serving areas with high potential for active trips).

The city would set aside funding for specific projects such as closing gaps in the pedestrian and bicycle networks, making stand-alone crossing improvement, and Complete Streets “quick-build” projects. If you’re wondering what “quick-build” projects are, they are “low-cost roadway projects that can be used to provide and evaluate solutions to improve safety and mobility.”

The new design guide that accompanies the policy includes three parts:

Complete Streets Cross-Sections – which looks at the street and shows how it would be broken up between different elements (such as sidewalk, street terrace, and parking) depending on what type of a street it is.
Design Guide Toolkit – which shows all of the different detailed design features and elements that can be a part of a complete street but aren’t necessarily a part of every complete street. These include general traffic calming treatments, intersection and mid-block crossing treatments, multimodal street improvements, and intersection operations and signal modifications.
Traffic Calming Retrofit Program – which includes installing some traffic calming features on a quicker timeline than when a street is fully reconstructed. These measures include measures such as updated paint and the installation of flexible posts.

In addition to the design guide, the study also includes information on improving pedestrian crossings. Per Alta, there is a lot of community demand for pedestrian improvement projects and historically requests have exceeded budget and staff capacity.

The city had previously focused primarily on the hazard index of various streets and crosswalks when determining where to install enhanced pedestrian crossings. Alta tried to expand the pedestrian crossing toolkit to look beyond the hazard index and focused on places where there was a lot of potential for people to walk, where there were a lot of shorter trips that could be done by walking, and where there were destinations that were important for walking such as schools, parks, trails, transit stops, and commercial areas. They also looked at areas with “higher levels of equity concern.”

They came up with a number of different potential intersections that could benefit from pedestrian crossing enhancements. Those include:

Calumet Street from Oneida Street to John
Meade Street – from Wisconsin Ave (STH96) north to the city limits
Northland Ave (CTH00) – length of city limits
CTHJJ – length of city limits
W Packard St – from North Richmond (STH47) to N Appleton
Memorial Dr (STH47) – W Prospect Ave to W College Ave
W Northland Ave and N Richmond St
E College Ave and E John St
Newberry Trail Crossing at Lawe St
E College Ave and S Kensington Dr
E Calumet St and S Schaefer St
W Winnebago St and N Mason St
E Calumet St and S Carpenter St
E Northland Ave (CTH00) – N Oneida to N Meade
N Meade St – E North St to E Eldorado St
Edgewood Dr at North High School
W Prospect Ave and S Mason St
E Glendale Ave at N Morrison St to N Drew St
W Packard St and N Division St
W Washington St and N Richmond St (STH47)
W Wisconsin Ave (STH96) and N Mason St
W Northland Ave (CTH00) and N Mason St
W Seventh St and S State St
W Fifth St and S Memorial Dr (STH47)

Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) had a few questions. He asked what was meant when it was indicated that the Complete Streets Policy would prioritize projects for the most vulnerable. Who did that refer to and what would they be projected from with the policy?

Lisa Bender of Alta responded that “vulnerable user” was not currently defined in the policy but they could add a definition. Right now, it could be interested in many ways, including people who experienced safety concerns because they were trying to cross high-crash corridors, people who were “vulnerable economically,” or people with “equity considerations.” [I was unaware that low-income individuals were less capable of crossing the street than higher-income people.]

Alderperson Doran said he would like to see things defined as much as possible given that this was a policy document that would be guiding the city in the future. “I mean, you mentioned economic factors or equity factors. It’d be nice to know how those apply here and why those are important in in the policy to help us sort of develop. Like, what makes that a consideration, we should be taking into account?”

Alderperson Doran also asked if there was any information about the financial impact of implementing this policy. How much would it cost to install a new Complete Street versus the streets that the city was installing currently? Additionally, what were the ongoing maintenance costs associated with Complete Streets versus the existing type of streets the city installs?

Traffic Engineer Eric Lom responded that they had talked about that at length in internal meetings. The different in upfront costs was easy to understand, but the ongoing maintenance costs were more difficult to get their arms around. The draft policy indicates that installation costs of Complete Streets are comparable to those of conventional streets. The draft policy also indicates that ongoing maintenance costs could increase, but it does not put a number on those increased costs.