This past Friday a public meeting was held to discuss the reconstruction of S. 2nd Street in Walker’s Point from National Ave. north to the train tracks. As had been proposed here at UrbanMilwaukee.com, and more importantly fought for by business owners in Walker’s Point, the reconstruction will now include many features of a complete street. This project appears to have the full attention of City Hall as Clark Wantoch, Public Works administration and transportation design manager, Rocky Marcoux, Commissioner Department of City Development, and Alderman Witkowiak spoke in strong support of the new design. Alderman Witkowiak explained that “we think that 2nd Street has an excellent future as a retail center,” and that he felt “it’ll mean a lot to the future redevelopment of 2nd Street and the surrounding area.”
The design includes many of the features of a complete street, including one travel lane in each direction, bike lanes in each direction, parallel parking on both sides of the street, and wider sidewalks to allow for pedestrian activity. The sidewalks allow for more green space with sodded sections and trees, or if the abutting property owner prefers it will be setup as a full sidewalk area to support retail functions. Additionally, a variety of street trees will be planted along S. 2nd Street as part of the streetscaping. Finally, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Phase Three funds of more than $500,000 were approved at the Joint Finance committee to be utilized for pedestrian lighting. Other features such as bioswales will likely not be part of the project due to cost, and the street’s contamination which would reduce the environmental benefits. Planters and other street furniture will also not be included in the state contract though as Allison Rozek , of the Department of City Development, suggested a Business Improvement District (“BID”) could be formed by property owners to handle these elements, and further “dress up the corridor.” The reconstruction, if all goes well, would break ground after next summer’s Summerfest with the goal of having the majority of the work completed by November with sodding and some finishing work to occurring the following spring.
Unlike many public meetings, the fear of change was minimal. In fact most of the questions reflected individual business owners trying to figure out if they wanted wider sidewalks or the sod, or even if they could acquire additional street trees. One owner even pushed to include the area from Rockwell to National Avenue in the reconstruction project. Unfortunately, as this section isn’t due for re-pavement the improved sidewalks will wait until a re-paving project is appropriate, though this section of the street will have some improvements including the painted bike lanes, and the reduction of travel lanes. There were some concerns regarding parking during the reconstruction, and one business owner was concerned over the loss of travel lanes, but overall the members in attendance were in strong support of the project, in fact applauding the efforts at the end of the meeting.
This meeting was just the first of many meetings to come regarding the redesign, but this project is both a signal that the City of Milwaukee views Walker’s Point as a critical neighborhood, and a sign that neighborhood business owners and residents believe Walker’s Point is ready to grow.
Today, is the start Milwaukee’s second annual Pedestrian Safety Week, during which the City of Milwaukee will be holding crosswalk safety 
To think, I was just about to put the UW-Tosa t-shirts up on the new Urban Milwaukee 
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