Complete Our Streets to Build a Better Milwaukee
“treat streets as valuable public places, rather than utilitarian corridors”
–Janette Sadik-Khan, Commissioner of New York City’s Department of Transportation
To complete a street means that it is time to stop looking at streets as automobile sewers and recognize that streets are really for people, that streets are public spaces. This doesn’t mean streets should become pedestrian malls or filled with speed bumps or humps, but that with small changes a street can be improved so that it becomes an appealing environment for people to walk along, for people to bike on, and for business to operate on. To accomplish these goals a few simple design features are utilized in a complete street design. These features include improvements such as narrow street widths, wide sidewalks, street trees, curb bump outs, two-way traffic, curb-separated bike lanes, enhanced crosswalk materials, and other streetscape improvements.
To get a better idea of how these enhancements can be used to a improve a street take a look at this interactive graphic by GOOD magazine.
In the coming days I hope to share my thoughts on a few streets that with improvements could help rebuild our city.
That’s a fantastic graphic. Looking forward to hearing your street suggestions, I hope you give equal opportunity to all areas of the city! Some citizens were trying to organize a street narrowing and improvement along these lines on 2nd st between St. Paul and National Ave.
Oh, I was just noting today that Glendale was redoing part of Port Washington Road (just south of Bayshore) for the umpteenth recent time, and each time it remains pedestrian-unfriendly. Not to mention how ironic the new Bayshore design is- from the street most of it is just monolithic.
A friend of mine went to Denver and raved non-stop about wide paved pedestrian-and-bike ways. That is something I’d really like to see here- she said it was really efficient and safe. Bike lanes just aren’t as safe as we’d like them to be. How would curb separation work? (see next paragraph!)
I have to disagree about curb bump-outs- I think you are talking about like on Holton and North (all chipped up by cars and whatever else hitting them) and on North Ave out by where Tosa starts? Where a person has to drive a curving path when going straight, to keep out of the turn lanes? That is a bizarre concept to me. They are too easy to run into between dusk and dawn.
I look forward to your future posts.
Hey Dave, this is brilliant. Since your the master photographer around here, perhaps you could point us to some of your favorite photos of streets or areas in Milwaukee that need the most help, then we could all take a stab at them? I reckon this is a good enough idea to get some exposure on jsonline or elsewhere!
I took a better look at the GOOD website and the contest would be a fun project to do as a team. I have tons of ideas, but about all I can do with Photoshop is crop photos. Anyone?
@Nate Stealing my thunder there… Yes I intend to talk about S 2nd as that is a very important street.
@Nick Yea I’ll have photos for the streets I have in mind.
hmmm I hadnt thought about actually doing the content but if we did S 2nd St would be a good one do try it on.
love the idea. Just don’t make the isles for cars too narrow. We still need cars on road because it brings traffic in and more crowd results from it.
I think doing a few here and picking the best to sent to GOOD would be a great thing! Good exposure for Milwaukee in a very hip magazine to boot…
Alex,
Of course you still need to move traffic around, but we don’t need city roads to be designed as county highways and slowing traffic can be a good thing.
I’m not sure about some of those ideas. They took a 5-lane street with parking and turned it into a 2-lane street with no parking. There are very few places where you could pull that off. I like having those little posts instead of concrete barriers though. If they made them into little U-shaped things, they could double as bike racks!
I would be be concerned on the traffic problems this could cause if it gets out of hand. I already have trouble convincing people to come see the new downtown and eastside because of traffic and parking concerns, if we make it even worse we’ll be keeping a lot of visitors out because of the headaches. Unfortunately the car is still a way of life in America and we have to accept it and make sure our good intentions don’t actually do more harm down the road (pun intended).
Coldwake81,
Agreed. I think half the point of these street projects is to get people to not use their cars as much and to choose walking/biking/transit instead. This is a central tenet in most any urbanist philosophy and is ripe for (occasionally understandable) attack from conservatives who see this as people telling and forcing other people how to act (on the flip side, urbanists are the victims of a car culture in the exact same way). The REAL point of any of these projects ought to be useful economic development in the area, and if travel by car is a practical reality, then choking off this mode of transportation will result in a failed project. At the same time, there’s a vicious cycle of car domination promoting wide streets promoting car domination and so forth. Good incremental change could do wonders, and the streetcar project could help the traffic and parking situation that you mentioned.
Daniel/Colwake81 Yea that graphic basically took all or many the concepts and tossed it into one design.
In some cases lanes could and should be removed, in others just narrowed with wider walks and such. But generally speaking at least with the streets I’m going to write about there won’t be a loss of parking, if they were actually built.
That said I’ll will point out that the belief that downtown Milwaukee (excluding the East Side) has a parking problem, or a traffic problem is just odd. There may not be a lot of “free parking” , but well that’s to be expected.
@Nate Yes very well said. These kind of changes attempt to find more of a balance between uses, instead of most of streets designed simply for 1 use.
Urban Milwaukee Enthusiasts:
On behalf of the ad hoc group of citizens organizing a more “complete” S. 2nd Street, I am putting out a call to any of you with artistic talent and a grasp of photoshop to answer our plea. We would love to submit an entry to the competition. We have a complete plan of ideas, complete with concept visuals. We have great shots of S. 2nd Street “before” too. What we need is some talent to translate our narrative into a visual of the “after”. The exciting opportunity with our entry is that we are poised to see at least some of our ideas embraced. With a little more momentum and publicity, I really think we can hit a tipping point. To update those of you without the background…. S. 2nd Street will be repaved in 2010 from downtown south to about National Avenue. The plan was to essentially repave the street as-is. With pressure, we have gotten agreement for the addition of 50 trees, and perhaps one pedestrian bump-out. With further efforts, we now have hopes that stimulus funds might be requested (and hopefully approved) for pedestrian lighting. Our big remaining push is to compel the City to reduce the street down from two lanes to one lane in each direction and add a bike lane. It may not seem like much, but the impact on the life of the street – and corresponding activity (including economic activity) will be huge if we can succeed.
So, if you can help us translate our vision visually, please email me. We have the ideas ready to go and much already in place for a great submission. I can’t wait to hear from you!! – Juli
email: juli.kaufmann@gmail.com
I love this idea. I’d love to Milwaukee incorporate some of these ideas.
Calming traffic – Yes. Transit lanes islands, great. But the idea of two way traffic on two lane streets is not likely to sell. Prospect Ave. often has only one passable lane, the other blocked by UPS, moving vans, fire trucks, and other necessary vehicles that go with higher density living. Pedestrian sight lines (and drivers’, too) can be seriously impaired by double-parked vehicles. In winter, Farwell often has only one passable lane as snow piles push parking well away from the curb.
@Jim V Yes Farwell and Prospect are tougher sells. Farwell needs something to slow the traffic along there and make it more pedestrian friendly, but it could be improved just by slowing traffic, with more stop lights, possibly a cycletrack, enhanced materials, and maybe a few curb bump outs. I’d say Prospect works fine enough.
Streets in my mind for going two-way include Wells, State, and Broadway (from downtown to the Third Ward).
@Juli Kaufmann – Sounds awesome. You should post some “as is” photos on Flickr and let the crowd go nuts with it. You might get some crazy ideas but there are two advantages to that – 1) You might see something you hadn’t thought of 2) If the ideas are really nuts, then a comparably sensible design is more likely to be taken seriously by the powers that be.
@Nick Aster- great idea! Anyone motivated to create an exciting new vision for S .2nd Street in Milwaukee? Why not use the great photos taken of the street from right here on Urban Milwaukee. Check the UM flickr address and search for 2nd Street – there are two excellent blank canvas “before” “as-is” shots. Grab them – and go to town creative kids: http://www.flickr.com/groups/urbanmilwaukee/
Don’t forget to check in with us here or at juli.kaufmann@gmail.com so we know you are working on it. We are looking for submissions by May 1. Thanks everyone (so far just one volunteer has responded, but hoping to get a few more….)
Here are three MASSIVE photos I found on Flickr – probably should ask “compujeremey” for permission, but I’d say here’s something to “roll with”:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/compujeramey/2504147876/sizes/o/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/compujeramey/2500187977/sizes/o/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/compujeramey/2503222037/sizes/o/
@Jackson and all,
Permission granted, please someone make something cool.
I sent this link to everyone I can think of that might be interested and also possess the necessary skills. Hopefully someone will take the bait. Great pictures, Jeramey!