Greg Kowalski at Franklin Today reports that the Wisconsin Department of Transportation has decided against roundabouts for 27th Street. Given the Fed-level priority placed on placing roundabouts whenever possible, one can only hope that the reasons given in the the WISDOT letter are indeed relevant; while a time-saving, safety-enhancing feature in many instances, roundabouts are certainly not appropriate everywhere.
For the record: The City Franklin did not, to my knowledge, offer any encouragement whatsoever to make roundabouts a part of 27th Street. This will be something to remember when the bills for signal light installation and maintainence arrive, and also when we read yet again about a drunk driver who is conveyed effortlessly through wide streets and into a residential area where he or she can do some real damage.
Meanwhile, Franklin adds to its enforced-by-"planning" reputation as a drive-thru city.
Coveting an interchange, will a local business pony up the cash?
ABOVE: In a photo taken while Northwestern Mutual's "phase 2" was still under construction (see girders at upper right), the Oak Creek "commitment" to connecting 27th street to a possible Drexel interchange is demonstrated. The road has since been re-paved --- but remains a narrow, near-shoulderless barrier.
Steve Jagler, executive editor of BizTimes in Milwaukee, made some spring predictions via the OnMilwaukee.com site.
This is a fairly fascinating notion. Anyone who has traveled Drexel on the Oak Creek side of 27th Street can't help but notice that the road is very consciously "under-engineered." After all --- the "spirit of Franklin-Oak Creek 27th Street cooperation" notwithstanding --- Oak Creek wants traffic to go EAST to their burgeoning commercial strip on Howell. What do they need with 27th Street?
So a fairly superfluousness interchange may be funded because Northwestern Mutual perceives a 45-second time-savings as a possible boon to property it owns around the 27th Street campus --- most significantly, on the Oak Creek side. Rather than take the Rawson exit, which brings traffic right down 27th Street (and through a commercial district that Oak Creek-Franklin profess interest in cooperatively growing), a Drexel interchange offers drivers a choice of turning west on a narrow, uninviting road (the Franklin side), or right on a meticulously maintained, multi-lane asphalt wonder (the Oak Creek side), which has a huge, vacant Delphi plant waiting for commercial development.
It doesn't take much imagination to see, in the lack of regional cooperation at work here, a moat forming around the island city of Franklin.
I've placed this on the agenda for discussion at the next Franklin Economic Development Commission meeting and that of the Trails Committee; we'll see what sense of urgency is created.
Posted at 12:00 PM in 27th Street, Close to Home, Commentary, Current Affairs, Economic Development Commission, Franklin Trails Committee, Politics, Problems, Traffic/Transportation, Transit | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
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