Photo credit: Dave Zylstra
Pedestrians crossing the street in the Third Ward
As automobiles have become the dominant transportation option for most American families, cities have primarily been designed to move cars through them as quickly as possible. Motorists have reaped the benefits of faster commute times, but a number of negative consequences have emerged from these urban planning decisions. In 2017 alone, 5,977 pedestrians were killed by cars in the U.S. The City of Milwaukee is taking steps to address pedestrian issues with its first comprehensive pedestrian plan.
A draft of the plan, which is being funded by a federal grant, was released in January. It is the culmination of the Department of Public Works’ (DPW) years-long efforts around pedestrian safety. “It’s taking what we’ve started to do, and formalizing that into practice within the department,” said Mike Amsden, DPW multimodal transportation manager. “Pedestrian safety and pedestrian accommodations are not new. It’s something that we as a department and we as a city have focused on for a while. The plan itself kind of brings everything together.”
These efforts follow a similar model to the city’s work around improving bicycle infrastructure. Milwaukee’s first bicycle master plan was released in 1993 and updated in 2010. “It’s no small coincidence that the number of people biking has more than tripled, and crashes related to bikes have gone down as much as 75%, since we’ve had a plan,” said James Hannig, DPW bicycle and pedestrian coordinator. The DPW now wants to replicate that success for pedestrians.
The Milwaukee Common Council also enshrined some pedestrian safety measures into law in October when they unanimously passed a Complete Streets policy. The policy directs DPW to consider all users—including pedestrians, cyclists and people using mobility devices such as wheelchairs—when redesigning city roadways.
Making Streets Safer
Safety is at the heart of the pedestrian plan, and for good reason. While crashes involving pedestrians in Milwaukee slightly decreased from 2011-2017, severe and fatal crashes saw a sharp increase [2018 data has not been finalized]. Just this month, Bryan Rodriguez, a DPW employee, was killed in a hit-and-run-crash while filling potholes on the 1700 block of West Vine Street.
Some experts have cited speeding and reckless driving as one cause of the uptick. “There’s a lot of really great research—in terms of the methodology, not so much the findings—around the problems in our city related to speeding,” Amsden said. “There are some incredibly high speeds that go through various areas where you have a lot of people walking, biking or taking transit. We all hear about that, we all see it and it’s definitely something we want to address.”
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The plan mentions five major challenges DPW faces when addressing pedestrian safety. These include a lack of funding, streets that prioritize cars over other modes of transportation, improvements only occurring after a serious crash, inadequate tools for making data-driven decisions and multiple sources of street design guidance.
To make their recommendations, the plan’s authors relied heavily on feedback from the community, along with data and research. “The recommendations generally mirror the themes that we heard out of the community engagement,” Hannig said. “You’ll hopefully see a more or less one-for-one of the issues that were identified with what the recommendations were.”
Four Milwaukee intersections are shown in the plan, with renderings of both “low effort” and “high effort” improvements that could be made to them. Solutions range from relatively simple and inexpensive upgrades like more signage and marked crosswalks, to extensive infrastructure changes like curb extensions, pedestrian islands and raised crosswalks. “There’s no cookie cutter approach that can be applied to every intersection, but there are some best practices that we are, and will continue, incorporating,” said Hannig.
Aside from safety, a number of other benefits are given for creating streets that encourage Milwaukeeans to walk more. The plan cites the health benefits of getting more physical activity from walking and the economic benefits of lowering a family’s transportation costs.
Challenges Ahead
More than 20 recommendations for making Milwaukee more pedestrian-friendly are put forward in the plan, but a number of challenges lie ahead for actually implementing them.
The first, as with any infrastructure upgrade, is funding. DPW plans on working with the state and federal government on funding packages, as well as using the plan itself to help secure grant money. There are also temporary, less expensive ways to put the ideas laid out in the plan into practice. “Funding is always a concern,” Amsden said. “With that said, I think a lot of the recommendations can be implemented with minimal cost.” He also said that existing department funds could potentially be shifted towards pedestrian safety measures. “We realized upfront that we can’t put out a plan that is entirely dependent on new magic money that appears out of nowhere, because that’s not always the case,” he said.
Aside from the funding concerns, there is a lifestyle change related to many of these recommendations. “For decades, cities have been designed for the auto and how cars are going to move around,” said Andrew Tillman, chairman of the city’s bicycle and pedestrian task force. “Now we’re going to have to reevaluate and figure out what the safest way is for a pedestrian to move around.” He said that there can be an “us vs. them” mentality pitting motorists against pedestrians and cyclists. “That part is going to be hard because nobody wants to give up something,” he said. “We have to make compromises, so we can all work together and make it easier for people and safer for everyone.”
While some of the changes may be difficult, Amsden said support for walkable streets is gaining traction. “From what we’ve been hearing, there is more and more support around safer streets, streets that accommodate people and streets that support vibrant places and places to be,” he said. “With that said, there are always challenges. I think it’s vitally important for any work we do—whether it’s design, education or enforcement—to require meaningful engagement with people who live, work and play on any of these corridors or intersections to make sure that an improvement is an improvement in the eyes of everyone.”
There will be a Milwaukee Pedestrian Plan open house at the Mitchell Street Library, 906 W. Historic Mitchell St., on Tuesday, March 5, 4:30-7:30 p.m.
