Aaron Gilmour
If neighborhood residents had to write a headline for an article covering the final stages of the Monroe Street reconstruction slated for 2018 — something they did have to do in a breakout session of the kickoff meeting Monday night — it would read something like this: “Revitalized, green Monroe Street attracts pedestrians, cyclists to area businesses.”
After years of setbacks and delays, Monroe Street residents are certainly ready to look ahead to a finished project. About 90 residents, business owners and city officials packed Wingra Elementary School gymnasium to pick up where planning left off, back in 2014. This meeting marked the first of 18 months’ worth of community planning sessions left before construction on the $17 million project begins.
The city contracted Urban Assets to lead public discussion and engagement during planning stages of the project. The group identified pedestrian accessibility, bike and transit safety, green infrastructure and business enhancement as the top priorities that arose from previous public input sessions in 2014, Zia Brucaya, Urban Assets associate planner, said.
The reconstruction will span Monroe Street from Regent Street to Odana Road. Jim Wolfe, city project engineer, said traffic volume reaches 20,000 vehicles on average per day near Odana Road and 13,500 near Regent Street. But he added that overall average traffic volumes have trended down since the 1990s for a variety of reasons, including an increase in biking and walking in the area.
Wolfe noted higher traffic volume correlates with higher speeds. Speeds are highest near Odana Road, with an average of 30 mph, and decrease traveling northeast, with an average 23 mph near Trader Joe’s.
Depending on how the Monroe Street corridor is redeveloped, there could be an uptick in traffic, but that won’t be something the city can monitor until the project is finished, Wolfe said.
The effect of heavy traffic flow on pedestrian safety is a major concern for residents, said Tyler Leeper, president of the Dudgeon-Monroe Neighborhood Association, which represents about 1,500 households.
“This is an artery, but most importantly, it is a neighborhood,” Leeper said. “We can’t sacrifice our neighborhood or the health of our neighbors for this artery.”
Leeper lives in the neighborhood and owns Wingra Boats off Monroe Street. He and other business owners in attendance worry how their businesses will survive during construction. He hopes to get support from local residents.
The project is expected to cost $17 million, with an estimated $9.8 million going toward street repair and $7 million to replace utilities. Another $200,000 will pay for water-quality measures like catch basins. And $20,000 will go for rain gardens, which help keep water out of storm drains, which eventually remove it from the watershed.
“The utilities out there are getting quite old. Sanitary, sewer and water mains all date back to the early 1900s,” Wolfe said.
The project is expected to last about seven months, finishing up in November 2018.
John Imes, executive director of Wisconsin Environmental Initiative, has worked with 28 business owners on the Monroe Street Green project in recent years. His family owns and operates Arbor House Inn, a bed-and-breakfast that promotes environmentally friendly practices.
“You’ve got two square miles of wilderness, you’ve got freshwater springs, you’ve got an oak savannah, you’ve got a natural history and heritage trail, you’ve got this phenomenal neighborhood,” Imes said. “So not losing that and making sure we’re ready to spend $17 million right and in a way that protects those assets.”
The public engagement continues this summer with meetings focused on project goals and issues. By fall, community discussions about intersections will begin, and discussions of green infrastructure, streetscape and placemaking, the term for trying to create distinctive urban spaces that are welcoming to people, will follow in 2017.
Area residents have high hopes for the reconstruction, and many want to see it become a model for upcoming city projects. Leeper said he’d like to “see something great happen,” and Imes said he sees this as an opportunity to “become the first green street in Wisconsin.”
Or as one resident’s note card from the headlining activity read: “Reconstruction of Monroe Street wins national urban design award for its synthesis of transportation, green space and preservation of vibrant businesses.”
