Back at the end of February during the 02/26/2024 Municipal Services Committee, the committee received a report on the July 2023 – January 2024 period of the College Avenue Lane Reconfiguration Pilot Period. I didn’t have an opportunity at the time to recap the discussion, but it seems like it might be something worthwhile, so I am going to recap it now.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
Here is a PDF of the PowerPoint presentation staff made:
The lane reconfiguration word was completed ahead of schedule on 07/14/2024. City staff then closely monitored traffic and spent some time tweaking traffic signal timing to optimize traffic flow. They also received feedback from businesses and made adjustments to loading zones. Summer roadwork projects on Lawrence, Durkee, and Morrison streets did increase traffic and drive times on College Avenue during the summer, but after the construction was done and all the initial tweaks had been made, staff was able to get a good idea of how the lane reconfiguration is working under normal conditions.
- Crashes – down 48% —This figure was based on the 3 years of data prior to the change as compared to the 5 months of data after the change. Traffic Engineer Eric Lom said that figure was in keeping with other communities who had experienced anywhere between a 25%-50% reduction in crashes when they made lane reconfiguration changes like this.
- Parking Meter App Revenue – up 16% — Staff did not have overall parking meter revenue information for College Avenue, but they were able to segregate the meters along College Avenue within the parking meter app and determine that payment via the app was up 16%. Understandably, staff had not been segregating the dollar mount plugged into those meters via coins prior to the project, so were not able to provide a before and after look at that, but in a future report they will be able to provide a comparison of parking meter revenue overall.
- Police Roadway Closures – 0 – Police Chief Polly Olson said that having to close College Avenue and divert traffic was a resource heavy task, so it was good that they had not needed to do that. They were glad they had been able to go 6 months without having to do that.
- 85th Percentile Speed – 30MPH – Traffic Engineer Lom said that was actually 3MPH less than what they tend to see across the city on 25MPH arterial roads. The percentage of cars that were going 10MHP or more over the speed limit was only 1.7% of the vehicles driving on College Avenue. On arterial roads city-wide 6.6% of vehicles drove 10 or more MHP over the speed limit, so having that percent so low on College Avenue wase encouraging.
- Traffic, Bike, Pedestrian, and Scooter counts – will not be available until summer of 2024. City staff wanted to be able to compare summer counts to summer counts instead of summer counts to winter counts.
Overall traffic speeds did not seem to be onerously increased. Throughout the day, the westbound traffic flow remained the same or actually improved over the drive-times seen prior to the lane change. The eastbound traffic flow time did increase during peak hours after the lane change, but the increase in drive time was, at worst, was 30 seconds more than prior to the lane reconfiguration.
Although they did not have traffic counts available yet, Engineer Lom believed, based on his own experience, that some people were choosing to bypass College Avenue which is something that staff had anticipated prior to implementing the lane reconfiguration.
Feedback on the change has been mostly positive, and, in fact, the last negative complaint Director of Public Works Danielle Block could remember receiving was back in the fall of 2023. The one area of concern that was raised by multiple members of the public is the merge points on either side of downtown where two lanes go down to one.
The merge point on the west side of downtown in particular seems to bother people. However, Engineer Lom pointed out that since the project was implemented, they have had around 1.5 million cars come through there and there have been zero reportable crashes related to the merge point.
He believed the concerns raised were due more to feelings of discomfort rather than actual safety issues. “[The merge point is] not generating crashes. If you watch it as I have—and you feel free to take your lunch here out there and watch this—it really isn’t. It’s not erratic. It’s not, it’s—what happens is as people leave the Memorial Drive intersection and as people start to pull away from the intersection, you naturally get gaps as people accelerate away from the intersection. People scoot over into those gaps, and nine times out of 10 it’s a very, you know, smooth, orderly thing. Some people don’t like that, and I’m sure on occasion, they have to touch the brakes to, you know, to deal with that. But the reality is, it’s working pretty well.”
Jennifer Stephany of Appleton Downtown Inc attended the meeting and also mentioned that the feedback ADI was receiving was generally positive. People liked having the bike lane as a buffer between the parking lane and traffic, and they had received comments from people who originally had not liked the plan but now appreciated it or, at least, didn’t seem to object to it. People were, however, prickly about the merge points.
There was some discussion about whether or not the overall noise along College Avenue had decreased since the change. There did not seem to be a good way to measure that, but Chief Olson said that the Police Department seemed to be receiving fewer complaints related to traffic noise than they had been receiving prior to the lane change, and Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) who lives in the downtown area and regularly frequents downtown businesses attested that she believed it was improved and downtown restaurant waitstaff had also attested to her that it had improved.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1169994&GUID=BA83847B-C8F0-4D2B-9FF9-002967CA5014
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