Feature
SITE Artists in the Community
Over the past couple of years, there have been a number of public art crises in Milwaukee. This has included the city removing a TRUE Skool mural, the arts community coming forward to save the Janet Zweig project for Wisconsin Avenue, and County Executive Chris Abele recently pulling the funding for a Milwaukee County Public Art Committee percent for art sculpture.
Jun 24th, 2011 by Pegi Christiansen
Wells St. Two-way Street Conversion is Long Overdue
At Thursday’s Public Safety Committee meeting a file will be voted on that would authorize the conversion of Wells St. to two-way operation from 6th St. to Prospect Ave. According to the Journal Sentinel, the Wisconsin Center District Board voted to oppose part of this conversion, in particular from 4th Street to 6th Street, due to “safety” concerns. These concerns miss the big picture and can be handled while bringing the benefits of making Wells St. two-ways in downtown Milwaukee. Well Street’s one-way configuration brings an assortment of issues that negatively impact the neighborhood it passes through. In particular it is common to see cars continuously circling the block, because a parking spot is not easily accessible without circling the neighborhood. Another direct result of Wells St. being a one-way street, with little congestion, and having multiple travel lanes is that people speed excessively. This is an all too frequent occurrence. Additionally, crashes occur when drivers attempt to turn left from the center lane, because the nature of the street doesn’t fit with the location, causing an accident. Finally, it is all to common to see are drivers heading in the wrong direction along Wells St. A two-way street conversion would alleviate these issues while bringing benefits to the city. A benefit is that a two-way conversion will make Wells St. more pedestrian friendly, as no longer will one need to cross a “freeway” to get across the street. It will bring enhanced visibility to retail establishments, drawing in more of the infrequent drivers passing through the neighborhood. Additionally, for automobile drivers it will actually enhance connectivity by reducing the need to loop around to find a parking spot or a missed intersection. Finally, it will reduce traffic speeds along Wells St., improving safety for both the pedestrian and the automobile driver. This change is long overdue and hopefully this is just another step toward a more connected, accessible, and safe built environment in downtown Milwaukee.
Jun 22nd, 2011 by Dave Reid
Bike-sharing is coming to Milwaukee!
Bike-sharing is coming to Milwaukee, or at least to Discovery World for a limited time. On Thursday June 23rd, from 11am-2pm, B-cycle, a partnership between Humana, Trek Bicycle and Crispin Porter + Bogusky, will be bringing their 5-bike, demonstration station to Discovery World.
Jun 21st, 2011 by Dave Reid
Milwaukee Streetcar at Apex
The Milwaukee Streetcar is finally poised to move forward. Following last May's approval of a preliminary engineering study by the Milwaukee Connector Study Group, the Milwaukee Streetcar project has progressed to the next step in its development. In late June the Public Works Committee and Steering and Rules Committee will take up the project on subsequent days, followed by the full Milwaukee Common Council in early July.
Jun 16th, 2011 by Jeramey Jannene
MSOE Parking Garage Proposal Needs Work
Talks between M&I, MSOE, and Milwaukee County regarding MSOE's proposed parking garage in the Park East have dragged on for months, and it is likely because of a new detail that makes a marginal project into a bad project.
Jun 14th, 2011 by Dave Reid
Growing Local – Recap
UrbanMilwaukee.com spent June 1st through June 4th in Madison live blogging CNU 19. The Congress for New Urbanism brings together architects, urban planners, government officials, and interested citizens to learn about topic related to the New Urbanism. We took part in sessions covering topics such as transit, incremental urbanism, bikeability, economic development, tactical urbanism, stormwater management, and urban design. Take a minute to see for yourself what CNU 19 was all about.
Jun 13th, 2011 by Dave Reid
Triumph of the City
Released February 10th, 2011, Trimuph of the City is the latest book to examine the value of cities. Written by Ed Glaseser, an economist at Harvard, the book explores "How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier." Dwelling largely on the social aspects of cities, Glaeser walks through the various aspects of city life that enable cities to succeed or fail including public health, public education, and transportation. He walks through evidence-based examples of why cities work to increase their residents wealth and health, examining the spread of ideas and disease as well.
Jun 8th, 2011 by Jeramey Jannene
John Norquist Milwaukee Tour – Congress for the New Urbanism
One day before the start of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) 19th annual conference in Madison, former Mayor and current CNU President & CEO John Norquist returned to Milwaukee with a number of his former deputies to offer a tour of many of the urban projects started during his tenure as mayor.
Jun 1st, 2011 by Jeramey Jannene
Agricultural Urbanism
“Growing Local” is a great example of how New Urbanism has evolved to keep current with recent developments in urban planning. While the interface of agriculture and urbanism was barely touched upon in urban theory only, 10 or even 5 years ago, the economic downturn and increasing food prices have made the relationship between people and their food a key issue in addressing the sustainability of the built environment for the long term.
May 30th, 2011 by Matthew Trussoni
Integrating Bikeability & Urbanism
One of the competitive advantages of urban living is having activities that are useful in many areas of your life. Biking is great example of this; people can ride their bikes to work, or go for a pleasure ride on the weekend. Both Milwaukee and Madison are leaders in providing great biking options and have been recognized on Bicycling Magazine’s “America’s Top 50 Bike-Friendly Cities”.
May 24th, 2011 by Matthew Trussoni
No Train to Madison for CNU 19
The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) is holding their annual congress in Madison from June 1-4. The prominent group of planners and architects has kept “congress” as the name of their annual meeting instead of changing it to “conference”, as most organization do, for a specific reason: the open discussion of topics related to urbanism.
May 23rd, 2011 by Matthew Trussoni
Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele and Transit
Chris Abele was recently elected to fill the remainder of Governor Scott Walker's term as Milwaukee County Executive. That gives Abele less than one year to accomplish anything as Milwaukee County Executive before he must seek re-election. Given the relatively short time for which Abele is assured to be in office, what can the newly-elected County Executive hope to achieve when it comes to transit?
May 19th, 2011 by Jeramey Jannene
