The Common Council met 03/05/2025. One of the items separated out for a vote was the request to make permanent the College Avenue lane reconfiguration in downtown Appleton. College Avenue used to have two lanes of traffic going each way. In July of 2023, the street was repainted so that it only had one lane of traffic going in each direction, one lane in the center, for turning, and bike lanes on both sides of the street. This change was approved by the Common Council in the hope that it would decrease noise levels, increase safety, and make downtown more accessible to pedestrians and bicyclists. The Common Council implemented an 18-month trial period which recently ended.
During the Council meeting on 03/05/2025, the Council ended up voting 13-0 to make the lane changes permanent.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
The Municipal Services Committee voted unanimously to recommend the item be approved after reviewing a report that indicated there had been a 12.7% reduction in crashes since the lane changes were implemented and receiving feedback from Appleton Downtown Inc that 63% of downtown business owners who responded to a survey were satisfied or very satisfied with the changes.
One downtown business owner who was not pleased with the change was Christopher Nellis of OB’s Brau Haus. He attended the Council meeting and voiced his opposition to the changes saying they had a negative impact on his restaurant, resulting in an estimated decrease in business of 20%-30%. He also highlighted the negative feedback ADI had received from other businesses in which one business owner stated, “We have had so many people message us that they will no longer come to our location downtown due to the bike lanes, new lanes and less parking. Many people have spoken about how the downtown is no longer what it used to be,” and another said, “30% less revenue. People complaining about trying to get to the studio. And no lone uses the bike lane,” and a third who said, “Traffic gets backed up. Hard to turn onto College Ave. You have to really watch when you open car door.”
Additionally, Mr. Nellis said that people still rode their bicycles down the sidewalk, and he rarely saw the bicycle lanes being used. When they were used, they were sometimes used by e-bikes that travelled at a high rate of speed which was dangerous for passengers exiting parked vehicles. He thought more parking would be more beneficial than bicycle lanes.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) confirmed with Public Works Director Laura Jungwirth that the number of parking stalls lost had been negligible. Director Jungwirth also stated that College Avenue parking meter revenue had actually increased by 9% since the lane reconfiguration had been implemented.
Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) said he had asked for feedback on Facebook and received 147 responses. Of those responses only 7 had been negative and the remaining 140 wanted College Avenue to remain in its new configuration.
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) thought the concerns about e-bikes travelling at high rates of speed down the bicycle lanes was a valid concern. He also thought there could be some modifications made at intersections. He did not feel the positive changes that had resulted from these modifications was as significant as they had hoped, but he was in favor of keeping the changes.
Alderperson Vaya Jones (District 10) confirmed with Mayor Woodford that it would cost the city approximately $75,000 to switch College Avenue back to the way it had been. She was in favor of keeping the new configuration because when she asked for feedback from her constituents, a majority of them had completely forgotten that there even had been a change.
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) asked if returning to the old configuration would beneficially impact the situation of bicycles going past people existing from parked vehicles. It was not clear that it would. If the bike lanes were removed bikes would then have to travel within the vehicular lane so the portion of the lane closest to parked cars would be taken up with bicycles.
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) was in favor of the change and quoted something he had read, “Sometimes you have to make people happy against their will. Don’t try and find consensus for everything, especially on things on mobility, because you will not convince everybody. All the projects we did faced opposition, but in the end, most of them were accepted because they were good projects.” He felt the project had been a success.
Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) was in favor of keeping the changes. She felt that the changes had positively impacted noise levels along College Avenue. She also said that they had moved from a place where 85% of College Avenue businesses had opposed the changes to roughly 60% now reporting that they had experienced no decrease in foot traffic. She also said that when she spoke with serving staff at downtown businesses they expressed appreciation that noise levels were reduced and that they could more safely cross College Avenue when they were walking to and from their work.
Alderperson Martyn Smith (District 4) had received feedback from a business-owner in his district who was strongly against the new configuration, but after having talked to Ms. Stephany of ADI Alderperson Smith felt that the weight of the opinion from downtown business owners was in favor of the change.
He noted that they didn’t have any data about the noise levels on College Avenue and suggested that they needed to find ways to get that data so they could determine what was and was not helping reduce noise in that area.
The Council ended up voting 12-0 to approve the request to make the College Avenue lane reconfiguration changes permanent.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1254913&GUID=C260C405-73BE-44C1-AB5D-0E14FB8294A8
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