Van Buren Could Receive Protected Bike Lane

As part of a broader plan to make traffic calming improvements to a series of Milwaukee streets, N. Van Buren St. through Downtown and the Lower East Side could receive a protected bike lane.

The Department of City Development (DCD) is moving forward on a proposal to spend up to $3.1 million on rebuilding the street from E. Michigan St. to E. Brady St. A key north-south link through Downtown, the street was one of several identified in 2019 as part of a pedestrian high-injury network.

“You’ve heard the term car sewer before. I think that describes this section of Van Buren very well,” said DCD economic development specialist Dan Casanova in presenting the funding plan to the Zoning, Neighborhoods & Development Committee Tuesday.

The Department of Public Works, using only paint, reconfigured a portion of the street in 2021 from four lanes to two lanes with a center turn lane and painted bike lanes.

Casanova presented three plans for what the use of concrete and other dividers could yield.

All of the options include a bike lane shielded by a parking lane and other dividers from the remaining travel lanes. The renderings show dividers similar to the plastic delineators seen on the Kilbourn Avenue bike lanes, to which the Van Buren lanes would intersect.

But among the options being considered is removing parking spots for an eight-foot-wide natural area that could include trees. That corridor could also be used to place bus stops, as islands, inside of the travel lanes (similar to some of the streetcar stops). The configuration of bus service on a protected bike corridor was one reason DPW said it was bailing on plans to add protected lanes to N. Humboldt Blvd. in Riverwest.

Other options under consideration include placing the two protected bike lanes on the same side of the street, creating an 11-foot-wide, two-way corridor.

“This is not going to be the final design, but just to show you what fits on the street,” said Casanova. “All three of these options, they all fit, they all work within our budget.”

Additional community meetings, to be led by DPW, are planned said Casanova.

The proposal is backed by Acting Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who declared reckless driving a public safety crisis on his first day in office. Both area council members, Nik Kovac and Robert Bauman have publicly backed making improvements to the street.

A letter from New Land Enterprises, which is developing both the Ascent and Nova apartments on the street (and previously developed Lyon Court Condominiums), calls for DPW to go beyond plastic bollards to more sturdy dividers, include wider sidewalks in the plan and expand the vision to stretch from Downtown to W. Capitol Dr.

“Wherever possible, we should be pushing curbs out around major intersections rather than creating the illusion of safety with paint and plastic,” wrote managing director Tim Gokhman. “It’s imperative we work together to make improvements to both the public and private built environment that reflect the city we want to become, not the city we have been.”

A total of $3.1 million from two tax incremental financing districts (Cathedral Place and North Water Street Riverwalk) would be used, but Gokhman said the city should explore its ability to pull even more money from the districts.

The city would need to navigate at least two challenges in doing that. Most notably, the funds can only be spent within a half-mile of a district’s borders under state law.

DCD and DPW would also need to navigate the laws surrounding TIF districts. The districts, under state statute, are only allowed to be originally created to improve a blighted property for a project that otherwise wouldn’t happen. Incremental property tax revenue generated from the district is used to pay down associated debt.

Closure of a TIF district, all else being held equal, increases the amount of taxed property and thereby reduces property tax rates, but holding a district open for future use does not withhold revenue from property taxing entities under the state’s property tax cap system.

The committee unanimously endorsed advancing the proposal. The full council is slated to vote on the project on Tuesday.

Other Street Projects

Downtown and the Lower East Side aren’t the only neighborhoods receiving traffic calming improvements.

A total of $8.5 million in property tax revenue from four tax incremental (TIF) districts would be allocated to fund traffic calming and safety improvements including curb bump-outs, narrower travel lanes, high-impact paving and new pedestrian infrastructure.

Other improvements would be made to the streets around the Midtown Center shopping mall on the city’s north side and in the area around the Stadium Business Park and Burnham Park on the city’s South Side.

The streets poised to receive traffic calming enhancements include W. Capitol Dr., W. Fond du Lac Ave. and W. Congress St. between N. 47th St. and N. 67th St. and W. Burnham St. and S. 37th St. near Burnham Park.

Additional details on those projects can be found in our Feb. 11 article.

The latest street projects would build on other new initiatives to tackle what is widely viewed as a reckless driving crisis. In 2021, the Common Council allocated $7.15 million from its federal American Rescue Plan Act grant toward projects on 16 corridors, making speed humps cheaper for nearby property owners and lowering the default speed limit from 25 to 20 miles per hour.

Related Legislation: File 211608