But yes, the city is doing its part, now it is up to the property owners to continue the redevelopment.

Taxation: Get rid of the non-profit status in the City of Milwaukee. Every taxpayer is underwriting every religion and cause known to man. Meanwhile, these groups own a rather gigantic share of non-revenue generating real estate. You want to fund all this window-dressing, then let’s make some of these groups actually pay for their services and property. We can also stop sticking it to the working men and women of this city then — and yes, I believe in a flat tax for everyone, regardless of religion, race, creed or persuasion.

Prison Industry: Let’s legislate and introduce more codes to enforce. Our city inspectors are already overburdened, but let’s add complexity and more strict guidelines for everyone to comply with. Forget we already have a slew of such laws, let’s add bump outs, more bylaws and check-boxes for anyone who already is a resident or business owner, flower boxes at prescribed intervals, lights of a certain variety and timbre, maybe a noise compliance below a certain decibel range. This is the “entry drug” of the police state. Cameras and Klaxons are next, the kind that will emit white noise to scatter the urchin who might be loitering at an insensitive time.

Education: Let’s get our schools in order so we can actually produce some strong minds. Pretty pictures and landscaping will do no good if kids can’t read and have their minds ready to lead. If we all cared as much for teaching kids to read as we do about bump outs, we’d have a literate population.

These are much bigger issues. While we talk about the pretty window dressing, the 5000 lb Gorilla is running in the back door and stealing our treasure out from under us, as he knew he could. We are mesmerized at the table and arguing about the menu while the bankers, storefront flim flam pastors and corrupt politicians in city hall keep picking our pockets clean! We’re only making it easy for them –

Look around at the historic character, pre-Civil war era buildings and some more recent, in an area time forgot. This type of proposal for redoing the Street is exactly whats required with all thats been suggested. Couple points:

- Street narrowing with traffic calming, bike lanes and a City committment to widen sidewalks for retail, cafes and offices is definitely going to help attract and retain businesses and jobs. A few successes already, but quite a way to go yet for the rest of the St.

- TIF funding for 2nd St/Reed Street District can be done with one of two fund mechanisms and doesn’t NEED a solo redevelopment project, the other means to implement is as a means to eliminate blight as the City has already done with other TIDs including the purpose of funding public improvements, similar to those proposed here.

- The Hank Aaron Bike Trail ALREADY runs N-S along a portion of 2nd/Reed St to connect from the Men Valley to 3rd Ward and adding bike lanes is seen by many to make for a safer and more pedestrian-friendly area. This reamins a GREAT idea and check DNR website for route map.

- The street has never been officially designated a Gay district, but has always been a quickly improving area for ALL types of businesses, boutique and design oriented firms, a few gay bars along with many, many others, and many have been here for multiple generations of owners. 1st 100 yrs was primarily industrial, with some still remaining, but with many new cafes, galleries, apartments, condos and even a recently proposed business and Water Technology park for the Reed Street Yards.

- Never any Gay bashing intended, but only insinuated by the ‘victims’. If you’re offended by a redeveloping area and feel your ’secret lifestyle’ threatened by the proposed street improvements, maybe a little less self-publicity would help your concern.

FYI, the original area of MKE with a concentration of Gay bars was the 3rd Ward, a little research with Nancy O’Keefe of the 3rd Wd District would show that. Look how ‘horrible’ the 3rd Ward turned out for the sake of vested efforts by its owners and businesses interested in continuing to improve their own neighborhood, rather than to accept the continued decline, blight and all that goes with it.

Recently, the City of Milwaukee submitted a funding request for “stimulus” funds to pay for pedestrian lighting on S. 2nd Street. Unfortunately, the proposal was not selected by the state. However, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation has indicated greater willingness to make S. 2nd Street a complete street, rather than simply repaving it. The City of Milwaukee Department of Public Works has indicated that it will take a closer look at some of these ideas as designing plans proceed. Advocacy is needed to continue to press for the enhancements we have discussed in this forum.

Alderman Bauman has scheduled a communication update on the status of S. 2nd Street at the Public Works Committee meeting scheduled for next week. Alderman Witkowiak has confirmed that there will be opportunity for public comment. The public is welcome and anyone interested in the future of S. 2nd Street is encouraged to attend:

Public Works Committee
Wednesday, June 24th
9AM
Room 301B, Milwaukee City Hall

Now for my nitpicking: bike lanes should never be implemented as all they do is push cyclists to the edge of the road and out of the way for drivers to lay claim to “their” road. The main reason I don´t want bike lanes here in Columbus is the same reason no sane traffic engineer would have a right’ turn-only lane to the *left* of a straight through-only lane. Cyclists are put in the blind spot/path of right-turning drivers which results in injuries and fatalities. From experience, riding in the middle of the lane has prevented me from possibly deadly collisions which would have occurred had I riden where a bike lane would be placed. The only time a car cut in front of me with a right hand turn was when I rode to the right of the lane. Now that I’m right in front of them, it has not happened since.

Having two lanes in each direction is a good thing: put sharrows *in the middle of the right hand lanes to encourage proper cycling* and allow cars to safely pass cyclists riding in the right hand lane. Aside from a costly road diet, the curb bump-outs are great, but curb-hugging cyclists (a dangerous practice) will weave in and out between these and parked cars. Worth erecting would be signage advising cyclists to maintain the center of the lane. Reversing this faulty system in it´s early stages is the best chance for a truly safe cycling environment, not one that appears safe and bike-friendly.

At the very least, the city needs to repave that road. It does not look like a place I’d want to ride my bike. Way too bumpy.

Of course, as a Columbus native I have to disagree with the comparison of 2nd St pictured above with High St in the Short North. The Short North is much more polished, no offense. 2nd St does, however, resemble the more gritty “gay district” Downtown in the northern central strip of 5th St in the area currently dubbed the (ugh) Warehouse District. If you´d like to compare (I’ll disclose up front these are from my blog), here’s the Short North:

http://columbus-ite.com/columbus-neighborhood-guide/the-short-north/

And here’s the Warehouse District:

http://columbus-ite.com/columbus-neighborhood-guide/downtown-columbus/warehouse-district/

The first picture corresponds rather well with the stretch of 2nd St pictured above, although 2nd St looks a good deal more intact than our 5th St..

I’m willing to bet 2nd St gets a makeover first between the two. The Warehouse District plan released in 2000 has yet to be implemented. In any case, those plans should just be scrapped, as should the name.

1. As has been clarified, cameras are not part of the plan. By alternative lifestyle and closeted, I assume you are referring to LGBT people. South 2nd Street has a long and rich tradition in Milwaukee that is central to the gay community. It was the original home to the LGBT Community Center, it hosts the annual parade to celebrate gay pride, many gay neighbors live here, and many gay-owned business call 2nd Street home. It is important to our cultural make-up as a city. Supporting and celebrating our gay community should be important to all of us. You might note, upon closer inspection, that the rendering we proposed for second street added two gay couples walking-arm-in-arm and hand-in-hand. I don’t realistically think a new street will change the world, but I think it can help us be a place that is welcoming to all.

2. “Are any of you smarty-pants people creating jobs, saving jobs… helping businesses survive?”. First, I don’t think name-calling is nice, especially when we have never met. I can assure you, I am not that smart. More to your question, yes, yes, and yes. I personally live on 2nd Street, I am raising my 3 year old son here, I located my construction business here and we have created six new full-time well paying jobs in the neighborhood. These economic times are very hard and running a small business is terribly challenging. So, we are doing everything we can everyday to save these jobs. We are also working aggressively with the City of Milwaukee on a special project that has the hope of creating as many as 20 new full-time “green jobs”. Finally, I work very hard to intentionally direct any of my spending to support the local economy. As a person active in trying to help remake 2nd Street, I bring these priorities and values to the work. I am also working actively with the Fifth Ward Business Association which, by definition, is a group of local business owners who create jobs, pay taxes, and invest everyday in our neighborhood.

Curb bump outs improve safety because they slow traffic, and yes slowing traffic is a goal in an urban environment. The days when planning departments thought the best use of a street is to move as many cars as fast as possible out of the area are over.

Further, rebuilding streets with these kinds of improvements have helped (of course there are plenty of other factors as well) make areas more vital in Milwaukee and other cities.

As far as cameras I don’t think anyone on here suggested or even said anything about cameras so I don’t know where that came from.

Local currency? Talk to Sura.

In another article I did suggest a rebuild of the street that I live on and in fact some of the ideas are exactly what the city is about to do to my street.

Finally this idea, that making Milwaukee more attractive is suburban in nature is well wrong. The idea that we need to move cars as fast as possible, and worry about that more than pedestrians, and bicyclists is clearly more of a suburban notion.

1) There’s no bike lane on 1st Street and, as unlikely as it may seem, 2nd St. is officially designated as part of the north/south bike trail. I’d love for it to be 1st St., too, but them the brakes as far as I can tell.

2) Curb extensions are about calming traffic and keeping intersections visible for drivers and pedestrians. It’s possible to make them bike-friendly, but I can see how it would make deliveries a little more difficult.

3) Where did this come from? No one mentioned cameras as part of the 2nd St. makeover.

You’re entitled to your opinion on how effective any of this is, but you’re criticizing the wrong people. No one would have left a comment on this post if they didn’t care about this stretch of road and the neighborhood it belongs to. Do the people who live in Clocktower Acres not deserve to have landscaping on Lapham? Is that only appropriate in the areas of the city that are already “nice?”

No one here wants to move to the suburbs and nothing anyone’s suggesting is suburban. The suggestions for 2nd St. are about revitalizing a street that has the potential to be a lot better than a scattering of vacant industrial warehouses. Nothing anyone has suggested would make 2nd St. less vital or more crime-ridden — it’s current quietness lends itself to crime because there aren’t enough people on the streets. Simply making the street less cratered and more inviting to the public will go a long way towards attracting more people to the area. In reality, urban planning strategies can intersect with crime control, job creation and supporting businesses.