Narrow car lanes on a wide
street with bike and parking lanes

Sometimes we look so hard and defend our position so strongly that we overlook a position that can satisfy both sides. I think this happened in our debate over keep the new repaved Wells Street wide or having it narrow. Here are parts of this letter that I spent time today writing that has a compromise for a wide and narrow Wells St.

Dear Mr. Murphy and neighbors on Eric’s last list that live in the neighborhood,
Good Morning!

Please find below and attached my vote opposed to the proposed narrowing of W. Wells st. as proposed by Mr. Murphy and DPW. A narrower road alternative is at end.

Yes, I said assessment for a 38 ft. street, not property tax assessment, but charges for extending the driveway and lawn leading up to new curb and possibly sidewalk replacement and sewer work. At your meeting you and DPW said we would be charged $5 a square foot for driveway extension, street would be 6 ft. shorter on each side and $1.50 per square foot for front lawn to new curb. Sidewalk changes will come with our street assessment and I am not sure how moving the sewer will be paid for. For us this means $374 plus any sidewalk and sewage assessment.

You say this survey is “nearing the end of the design process.” This is true but it is due to you and city officials. Last fall a high ranking city official saw the final plans of DPW and your design plans for Wells St. and told us that the plans called for narrowing the street from 50 ft. to 38 ft. However, you did not call a meeting till Feb. 5th.

At the beginning of this meeting you told us this plan, decided before last fall was the ‘consensus of residents’ of Wells street. You later withdrew that comment but DPW was not prepared to answer our questions.

One questioner asked for evidence that a narrower street would slow down traffic. DPW and you could not give any. Narrower streets can be accomplished in many ways outside of your proposal. Bike lanes, Parking lanes narrow the street in much safer way. You and DPW can find on the web all kinds of ways for “traffic calming” as I did. Actually in four years of meetings about speeding on Wells Street there have been many suggestions for “traffic calming” that can work.

I am glad you mentioned Lloyd Street as an example of a 38 feet road leading to 41 expressway. Your Google pictures are very deceiving since they do not show park cars and car congestion. On the way home from an event Friday night my wife and I drove down Lloyd from 55th street to 47th street, Hwy 41 entrance going South. (41 ends one block north of Lloyd street at Lisbon.) As we were driving down the street my wife told me about her experience attending a morning drive time discussion group at a friend’s house who lives on 49th and Lloyd. She told me that she had to wait awhile before existing her car on the drivers side. Also her friend’s son’s car has been sideswiped twice on Lloyd. There were very few cars parked on Lloyd on Friday night as contrast to Wells Street. Part of the reason of less cars on Lloyd is that, although there are some driveways there are alleys entering and existing Lloyd, something we do not have on Wells St.

I went over to Lloyd early Saturday afternoon. The first thing that struck me was how fast the cars were going. I used a speed gun to track the speed and most cars were going over 40 mph in a 30 mph zone. So much for going slower, and this was not even drive time. I parked my car across the street from a small truck that was parked around 54th and Lloyd. From the attachment 3 picture of a car going 47 mph you can see there was not much room between my vehicle and the speeding car. The resident of Lloyd came out of his house to get in the small truck. He asked what I was doing. I told him and he told me how at drive time cars are going by his house 45 to 50 mph. This house is one block away from the stop signs on 55th st. I challenge anyone that believes a 38 foot street will slow down traffic and is safer to go over to Lloyd between 55th and 47th entrance to 41 South. Just take a good look but be careful when opening your car door, especially at drive time.

Today I parked my car near my house on 51st and Wells across the street from a parked car on the other side. I measure 6 ft toward the middle of road from each car, width of a each parked car. I put chalk and tape lines on the spots. This is how much room we will have next winter between parked cars if Wells becomes 12 foot narrower. Check out the picture below or the actual chalk marks. The chalk and tape marks may disappear soon since many people now go into the space that will not be there next winter. Congestion of Brewers game days, use of garbage trucks and other wide vehicles like buses, getting in and out of driveway are things most of you can understand how hard it will be with a 38ft. street.

On the positive side we can all be happy with single lane street, with plenty of parking room and also a bike lane. This suggestion was probably suggested at one of meetings and exist right here in Milwaukee. Check out Google earth picture attached 1 below which is a view on 2200 block of Humbolt Ave looking south. You will see a parking only lane, bike lane and single car lane on each side of middle line. With this plan there would be no assessments of homeowners; we will have the narrow street some desire to slow down cars and have a bike lane for the many bikes that use Wells St., probably since it is wide; also we can park our cars on the street safely or enter and exist our driveways. We would have a new paved street at a lower cost and work could be done much quicker than over the May-Stepember of proposed narrowing. We can have our cake and eat it too, a narrower and wide safer street.

Please present this less expensive alternative to narrow the street and increase safety on Wells while getting our present street repaved. At least please give us a choice. This email will not be read by some or even go to most of residents on Wells. But I hope you and everyone on Wells spreads this compromise to residents on Wells st.

Comments

Please send any comments on this post to . Let us know which day’s post your comments pertain to. If the comments are appropriate we will post them here for you.