Better Streets MKE, Vol. 17
The big news this month is the United States Department of Transportation awarded Milwaukee a $36 million Reconnecting Communities Grant to rebuild 6th Street between North Avenue and National Avenue (2.6 miles) to include safer infrastructure for walking, biking and transit. This project is one of the "Catalytic Projects" described in the Downtown Plan 2040 (which we praised when it was released last year). The plan includes important historical context alongside a summarized recommendation:
To accommodate interstate traffic North 6th Street was widened in the 1960s. This resulted in the removal of historic structures and the creation of a street that prioritized car traffic over the experiences of people who live, walk, work, and shop along the corridor. 6th Street should be redesigned as a priority transit street and enhanced bikeway.
This project is years out, but has the potential to be absolutely transformational. Urban Milwaukee has great coverage of it here.
Milwaukee's Pedestrian Fatalities in 2023
MilWALKee Walks has written their yearly report on Milwaukee's pedestrian fatalities for last year. It's a sobering analysis with mixed news on Milwaukee's progress towards eliminating traffic fatalities. Crucially, in addition to summarizing and explaining the data that is available, it highlights gaps in how this data is collected and reported. The report is well worth a read.
Upcoming Events
Strong Towns Milwaukee Monthly Meeting
The local chapter of Strong Towns has special guest at their monthly meeting in April – City Engineer Kevin Muhs will be joining to talk about recent and upcoming projects in the city.
Monday, April 8th, 2024
6:00pm to 7:00pm
Wheel & Sprocket Bay View
187 East Becher Street
Transit: GRE, 15, 54
Bublr station on site off of Robinson Ave
Brushstrokes on Barriers
This volunteer event is perfect for the local urbanist who just really loves jersey barriers. This is a beautification event to paint the jersey barriers near the S. 6th Street roundabout, hosted by Menomonee Valley Partners and the Walker's Point Association. This is a rather notorious area, with an improvement project coming up soon and a Youtube channel dedicated to showing drivers coming aggressively southbound over the bridge. There are two shifts available. Learn more here.
Saturday, April 13th, 2024
9 am to 3 pm (happy hour 3 - 5 for volunteers)
In person only (unless you are a very creative painter)
6th & West Virginia
Transit: 19, 80
Bublr station at 6th and West Virginia
Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee
Meetings are open to the public and held on the third Friday of the month. You can sign up for updates on meetings and agendas via e-Notify.
Friday, April 19th, 2024
8:30 to 10:00 am
Hybrid
Zeidler Municipal Building, 5th floor
Virtual Meeting link
Transit: 15, 18, 57, GRE
3 blocks or less from the 14, 19, 30, 33, and CN1.
Bublr station on Van Buren St. near Wells St.
Critical Mass
A (fun!) monthly no-drop bike ride, with a fabulous website. Rolling out 6:00 pm sharp.
Friday, April 26th, 2024
Rolling out 6:00 pm sharp
Red Arrow Park
920 N Water St
Transit: GREEN, 15, Hop, 57, 18, 33, 19, 30, CN1, 14
Bublr station at Red Arrow Park
Wisconsin Healthy Communities Summit
The Wisconsin Bike Fed and Wisconsin Office of Outdoor Recreation are hosting 2024 Wisconsin Healthy Communities Summit in Madison with Jessie Singer, author of "There Are No Accidents" as the keynote speaker. Her book is excellent and available from the Milwaukee Public Library here. This is a paid event, you can register here.
Monday, April 29th, 2024
8 am - 5 pm
UW-Madison Memorial Union - Great Hall
800 Langdon St
Madison, WI 53703
Reimagining 175 Public Involvement Meeting
Learn more about the the Reimagining WIS 175 Study. The goals were to take a comprehensive, holistic approach to evaluate potential, viable alternatives for the future WIS 175 corridor in a way that accommodates vehicles, transit, bicycle and pedestrian connections; connects neighborhoods, and promotes socio-economic vitality. Stakeholders have been meeting for months about this vision, and the public will now see some of their ideas.
Monday, April 30th, 2024
4 - 7 pm
Washington Park Senior Center
4420 W Vliet Street
Transit: 33, 30
Bublr stations at 40th & Vliet, and Lloyd and Sherman
Surveys
Vision Zero
Vision Zero is a policy to reach zero traffic deaths and life-changing injuries by 2037, through a mix of strategies including redesigned streets. Take this 10-minute survey to help shape the City of Milwaukee Vision Zero Action Plan.
MCTS CONNECT 2 Survey
MCTS has released some project materials for the upcoming North-South BRT here, and is soliciting public input in a survey.
Bublr Bikes
Bublr bikes has a new survey out, seeking input from both those use the bike share regularly and those who haven't tried the city's fantastic non-profit bike share yet. The survey is available in English and Spanish.
Eyes on Projects
Psst - we don’t cover every project in every volume of this newsletter if there is no major new information. Check out previous newsletters for more updates about projects.
Milwaukee County Complete Communities Transportation Planning Project
Following their extensive public engagement and 2023 Safe Streets Roadshow, the County has published both its Traffic Safety Assessment Report and Motor Vehicle Collision Dashboard. The report includes county-wide data on crashes and their impact, what they've heard from the community, and their next steps.
Moving forward, the County plans to review policies and programs to identify opportunities, implement best practices for improving safety, and develop a strategy for achieving Vision Zero across Milwaukee County.
Jackson Park Drive
Unfortunately, the County Supervisors endorsed the more expensive "compromise" in Alternative C that reconstructs a portion of the roadway. This decision will cost more build and more to maintain every year going forward, further constraining the already limited County Parks budget.
One or more of the authors of this newsletter may or may not have led a ~20 person bike ride along this section of Jackson Park Drive on Good Friday. Number of cars who passed us? Zero. Number of cars parked on the road? Also zero. Hmm.
Highland Boulevard faces delays?
In the March 27th Public Works Committee meeting, City Engineer Kevin Muhs discussed the state of the Highland Boulevard project. (You can hear Muhs discuss this at this recording around the 1:17:31 mark. If you really have some time on your hands, it's a great meeting to listen to while doing the dishes.)
Last year, a small portion from Vliet to 35th was retrofitted with concrete-protected curb bike lanes. Construction was supposed to extend these lanes to 20th Street this year. Unfortunately, the City has hit a familiar snag: WisDOT. Despite becoming more amenable to safety improvements, the state agency does not want in-lane bus boarding on any connecting highways, and Highland is a connecting highway east of 35th Street. According to Muhs, this portion of Highland sees an average of about 7000 trips per day - which is (in our words) not that serious. In-lane bus boarding is essentially required in order to have good protected bike lanes at the curb. Why is the DOT unwilling to have in lane boarding? Because cars would have to pause and wait for the bus to load. Right now, the 31 bus routes along Highland with 20-40 minute headways, making this an infrequent occurrence. Motorists have their pick of many other east-west streets (including I-94), whereas in-lane boarding has the benefits of speeding up bus loading, protecting cyclists, and protecting pedestrians from being hit by cars swerving around buses.
Curious about a project? Check out Engage MKE
There are many road projects happening in Milwaukee. To learn more about them, check out the (new and improved) Engage MKE. This resource is a good place to start for understanding the major projects occurring in Milwaukee. Projects include:
