College Avenue in Appleton, August 24, 2023. PC: Fox 11 Online
APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — The City of Appleton Municipal Services Committee voted 5-0 to approve the College Avenue lane change Monday afternoon.
It now moves on to the Common Council.
The change, which added bike lanes and a turn lane to the road, was an 18-month pilot program that began in 2023.
Drivers like Ryan Wittman said it’s been quite a change.
“I don’t feel like it’s as congested as much as it used to be, so it’s alright,” he said.
Ethan Stock also lives in Appleton and told us what he thought of the changes.
“I think it’s great, honestly. It’s really a lot more efficient now,” he said. “A lot safer, especially for the bikers. A lot easier to park, so I think it’s awesome.”
Some, like Adrian Stancil-Martin, are looking forward to the new lanes staying.
“I do believe they should make the bike lanes permanent. If anything, I think they should be investing in the bicycle infrastructure to make sure that people want to use the bike lanes,” he said.
Final numbers from the Public Works Department’s presentation showed a 12.7% reduction in crashes. It also showed that the average speed on College Avenue has been reduced since the change.
Public Works Director Laura Jungwirth spoke more about the project’s numbers.
“From pre-lane configuration to post lane reconfiguration, the difference was negligible,” she explained. “It was only about just over 1% change in traffic flow in our data.”
Members of the committee said that one of the most prominent complaints that they received was noise along College Avenue. While it wasn’t addressed in the study, Jungwirth said that the city is working hard to make sure that noise reduction is enforced in the future.
“One of our alders has proposed, and it was recently approved at our common council last week, some revisions to our noise ordinance that hopefully give a bit more enforcement ability in the noise ordinance,” she said.
The lane reconfiguration received mixed reviews from drivers when it first opened, but progress reports during the program showed positive changes.
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