Franklin Common Council and Stimulus Funds: looks like sprawl as usual

[UPDATE: Blogger (and rabble-rouser) Fred Keller has posted a LiveScribe recording of the citizen's comment period here.]

A contentious Common Council meeting last night, featuring some disappointing behavior by aldermen who should know better. Arrogance and a dismissive attitude toward the very real concerns of your electors will get you tossed out of that seat in a hurry.

Especially if 51st street is widened to four lanes notwithstanding your condescending mockery of the neighborhood's apprehensions.

Yes, despite rather weak (and, frankly, contradictory) reassurances to the large contingent of residents present to speak against a grotesque four-lane 51st street expansion, that possibility remains on the table.

And, based on an announcement due from the US Secretary of Transportation today, the city of Franklin has made an enormous and costly mistake in voting for more road-bloat last night.

We are hopelessly out of step, I fear.

More details tomorrow, but, in the meantime, here is the text of my address to the council during the lively citizen comment period. My turn came on the heels of Alderman Steve Olson stressing the inevitability of these road-bloat projects by listing upcoming work in the long-range schedule - - all concentrated on further super-sizing collector roads. "Does anyone see the trend?" he said.

So I said:

I guess I'm going to be addressing Alderman Olson's "trend." It's a trend I'm clearly not too fond of.

On a purely economic level, we need streets that feed our businesses while making “park once, multiple stops” possible - a virtually unknown concept here.

That’s what attracts investment and creates local character. That's what brings business to town.

The city of Franklin - with all due respect [to city engineer Jack Bennett] - almost flamboyantly thumbs its nose at the idea of traveling from place to place without a vehicle. Residential roads are built wide and curvilinear for maximum speed - kids and bikes be damned.

We seem preoccupied with expanding traffic capacity rather than creating special places and desirable environments for people and business.

And nearby is STILL far away.

There are neighborhoods close enough to Franklin High School to be illuminated by the sports field's lights - yet the residents of those houses have no way to safely walk or bike to the high school! So is it any wonder that so many vehicles are on 51st street at the beginning and end of school days?

That's an embarrassment.

Pleasant View Elementary remains accessible by a single thin road with not so much as a shoulder to retreat to if you should attempt to walk or bike to the school.

That's an embarrassment.

I know of a child who gets on a bus from his house maybe 200, 300 yards from the front door of the school. The distance he walks getting on the bus, going to the back seat of the bus, then walking back off the bus is probably longer than if he'd simply walked to school. But he can't walk to school, because there's not even a shoulder to escape oncoming traffic. And is there ever more traffic than after and before a school day? I don't think so.

That's an embarrassment.

Let's remember that the County Sheriff has determined that all of Franklin School District is in an "unusually hazardous transportation area." Therefor, all students in the district are entitled to bus transportation.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding should not be used to expand a system of roads that do not provide safe travel for people who are walking or bicycling. Too many Franklin streets are designed wide and fast, without sufficient sidewalks, crosswalks or bicycle lanes.

We, in fact, CREATE traffic with huge roads and no alternative.

Now we have an opportunity for a new approach. there's not a lot of time.

We currently have little or no consideration given for the safety of older people, children, or people with disabilities.

These incomplete streets are dangerous and create barriers for people to get to jobs, school, the doctor, and fully participate in civic life.

Basically, Franklin's system of ever-widening collector streets -- which is all Alderman Olson listed -- expand without regard to interior grid roads - a blatant concession to subdivision developers - and does nothing but concentrate and increase traffic, create noise, and make it impossible to travel from place to place without firing up an internal combustion engine.

This is not an environment that encourages businesses to move in and take root. It is not an environment friendly to commercial enterprises that benefit from the ability to linger; I'm talking about book stores, coffee shops and the like.

I fear that Franklin seems content to ignore opportunities to increase connectivity and instead continues to encourage volume and throughput.

I have a list of almost 600 Wisconsin bicycle and pedestrian projects funded or co-funded by the federal government from 1993 to 2007. Franklin does not appear once.

We're going to have to address this.

As for 51st street: There are clear and ready-to-implement street schemes that can be deployed there to make it a neighborhood amenity and increase commercial foot traffic.

So let’s get on that.

Comments

[JCG]

Such radical common sense.

[Terribly Disappointed]

Frankly, I am terribly disappointed in our city government. I became involved in city government about 2 years ago, and since that time, have seen atrocious behavior from our Common Council and Mayor. These people apparently have their own agenda - and "damn the people for getting in their way." They have these so-called Citizen Comment Periods to pretend that they care what we say - but maybe now it sounds like they don't even bother to pretend to care. Then, they just go ahead do what they want to do anyway. Don't these people realize that they work for us? The only one on that Common Council that ever seems to work FOR THE PEOPLE is Alderman Wilhelm - wish she was my alderman. Can't these money-hungry and power-hungry aldermen and mayor realize that the people of Franklin don't want all this development. We don't want Target in the backyards of half million dollar houses; we don't want a sea of aphalt buckling and bursting because it was built on a wetland; we don't want churches torn down because you want to make a road bigger; we don't want bike trails in our back yards; we don't want the BOOMGUARD District. Leave our city alone. Go run for office in some other city and wreck that city instead of ours.

[Franklin Resident]

The comments you made concerning your opposition to expanding 51st street were right on. The only problem is the Mayor, certain alderman and our city engineer have there own agenda. They did not listen to you at all.