[Editor's Note: This is the last of a three-part series covering different aspects of the City of Lansing's Master Plan update. If you would like to get more involved with the city's Workshop in a Box series, call the Planning Office at 517-483-4060 or visit them here.] Chelsea Kennedy grew up in a small country town where traffic jams were non-existent and most everything was a 15-minute car ride from home. Now, it's the walkable city life that she craves.
“The biggest thing I love about being here is I can walk right down the street to work, or someplace for lunch,” says Kennedy, who made Lansing’s Westside her home in 2007, and works as a shift manager at the
Biggby Coffee on Saginaw Street.
“There’s a park, too," she says, "where you can catch a baseball game or play horseshoes. It’s just a friendly place to live.”
Lansing's Saginaw-Oakland corridor holds loads of promise as an evolving residential and commercial district. Neighborhood organizations are strong, new businesses are popping up, and talk is circulating about road projects that would calm traffic, provide lanes for cyclists, and improve the area’s eco-friendly character and streetscapes.
“I’m trying to drive as little as possible these days,” says Kennedy, who frequently commutes by bike to attend
Lansing Community College. “Right now, I have to ride on the sidewalks, so it can get a little sketchy.”
East Meets WestAs a city rooted in car culture, the Capital region is working to provide more transportation options for citizens to get from point A to point B. That, say some officials, begins with the roadways—particularly with east-west arteries that run from
Frandor through the city's historic Westside neighborhood.
“The hope would be to soften the corridor, to enhance it with some street trees or a wider parkway to make it feel greener,” says Andy Kilpatrick, transportation engineer for the
City of Lansing. “The overall perception of the area would change as Saginaw and Oakland become more like neighborhood streets rather than highways.”
The city’s Master Plan revision process will likely include some recommendations for adding green space, providing for pedestrian and bicyclist safety, stimulating business reinvestment, and addressing blight within the Saginaw-Oakland corridor.
In the past year, community planning consultants from
JJR and
LSL Planning analyzed the Westside corridor and proposed several options for land use and traffic patterns.
Residents, activists and other stakeholders recently reviewed and provided feedback on
several of those ideas, particularly those concerning roadways. Among the variations are keeping Saginaw and Oakland as is, switching from one-way to two-way avenues, or reducing the number of lanes, lowering speed limits and adding bike and turn lanes in certain sections of town.
The corridor analysis, says Kilpatrick, has been under review with the Michigan Department of Transportation since early winter. Expectations are that the city will fold any road reconstruction on the Westside into the scheduled Combined Sewer Overflow project in 2010-2011.
“
MDOT is supportive of our efforts, but it’s still open for debate because of the EPA standards we need to comply with,” Kilpatrick says, adding that an air quality analysis needs to be done before any traffic changes can be approved. “That could make for a potential stumbling block for implementation, at least for this year.”
Popular SupportThe proposed redirection of Westside traffic reflects the popular support for greening up Lansing, and making it less dependent on automobile transportation.
That support, says Kilpatrick, is voiced by a consortium of community organizers, businesses, and government groups adamant about making Lansing a more walk- and bike-friendly place to live.
The grassroots group
Walk and Bike Lansing! recently held a series of community design sessions that engaged residents in the benefits of changing Lansing’s major modes of transportation. The task force listened to concerns about growth and safety, and will be bringing suggestions for designing a sidewalk, trail, bike lane and crosswalk network forward to city planners.
To date, the three-year-old initiative has inventoried existing bike lanes, helped create a plan for safe routes, and launched safety education through schools and other community organizations.
“The city’s emphasis is on trying to make the city’s transportation system work for all ages, abilities and travel modes,” says Kilpatrick. “We want the system to not be solely based on motor vehicles, and to make it better for people to walk, bike, and get to public transit safely and conveniently.”
The challenge, Kilpatrick says, is to provide those amenities in the existing roadways while still maintaining adequate access for motor vehicles.
“Overall, our hopes are to still be able to accommodate traffic that’s already there, and to make it more compatible with the neighborhood,” says Kilpatrick as he talks about the Westside. “There are changes that could be made to make the area more livable and restore some of the vibrancy.”
Close to HomeSome bike friendly cities have reaped success from reconfiguring roadways and adding bike paths. In Ann Arbor, for instance, 15.79 percent of trips are by foot, and in Madison, Wisc., 3.19 percent of trips are by bike. Compare that to Lansing, where just 2.45 percent of all trips are by foot, and .42 percent are by bike.
Locally, East Lansing is in the vanguard of encouraging bike and foot travel by condensing selected roadways.
“Initially, we did see some resistance,” says Tim Dempsey, assistant planning director for the
City of East Lansing. “Lots of people felt that by reducing vehicle lanes you are somehow hurting traffic and slowing it down.”
Within the last decade, two highly-traveled roads were reduced from four lanes to two, and a middle turn and bike lanes added. Despite those “road diets,” Dempsey says, Grand River and Burcham Avenues were still able to handle traffic effectively
“It was simply a shift in priorities,” says Dempsey. “Vehicles, pedestrians and bikes now all have an equal standing.”
Long-time Lansing resident Bob Sawyer hopes to see similar road diets for his part of Greater Lansing. As the co-owner of
Sawyer’s Gourmet Pancake House on W. Saginaw, Sawyer sees the value to the city and to the neighborhood in improving bike and pedestrian access to a long-neglected business corridor.
“We’re in for the rebirth of West Saginaw,” says Sawyer, who opened his business with his son Ajah in early 2008. “It’s good for community. It creates community. Lots of people and kids now like to bike and walk. We might as well give them their space.”
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Ann Kammerer lives in East Lansing. She has written extensively about area businesses, non-profits and people making news for a variety of local and regional magazines.
Dave Trumpie is the managing photographer for Capital Gains. He is a freelance photographer and owner of Trumpie Photography.
Photos:
Chelsea Kennedy
Bike Paths
Walk and Bike Lansing meeting
Sawyer's Gourmet Pancake House on Lansing Westside
All Photographs © Dave Trumpie