Kalamazoo asks residents to take a close, personal look at streets on walking audit for ‘Design It! Downtown’

KALAMAZOO, MI — The mission: A holiday shopping trip in Downtown Kalamazoo. You’ll need to park the car and walk. 

It was a nice sunny noon at the end of April. Nolan Bergstrom, Community Planner with the City of Kalamazoo, told us to imagine walking around snow and ice plowed up along the streets, with sidewalks partially cleared. 

It seems like it wasn’t that long ago I was struggling over icy curb mountains Downtown.

The noon exercise was a walking audit, part of “Design It! Downtown,” a series of Imagine Kalamazoo 2035 events meant to get the public’s opinion on what’s needed, and participation in looking at current issues first-hand.

A small group of people participated. We each got a list of destinations and scenarios. Some had to be shoppers, or had to see themselves as parents pushing strollers, or visitors who might not be familiar with Downtown. 

Bergstrom says we’re allowed to use Google Maps on our phones only if truly lost. But most participants worked Downtown, or lived in the City.

My walking partner, Raina Skeels, knew exactly where she was going (which may be because she’s the Destination Services Coordinator for Discover Kalamazoo). She glanced at our list of destinations and took off at a speed that had me working to keep up.

Beowoof for pet gifts, Spice & Tea Merchants for the caffeine fans, Rocket Fizz for the candy lovers, and other shops. We didn’t go inside to actually shop — it was lunch hour, and the sooner we completed the list, the sooner we could meet Bergstrom and the participants at Cafe Casa. 

Skeels cut down the brick alley leading away from E. Michigan near Portage Street. It’s her favorite shortcut, she says, but I tend not to notice it. In earlier times, this would be an unwelcoming space, but it’s now part of Haymarket Plaza, with lights strung overhead and welcoming murals. She turned right to head to the Kalamazoo Antiques Mall.

I nag a bit about jaywalking as she crosses Edwards to get to the antiques. Traffic was clear, we looked both ways, but technically, the offense can be seen as a grave one in the era of automobile dominance. 

However, the City is looking to make Downtown a place where pedestrians feel welcome and not fearful. How could they work with people’s natural tendency to take shortcuts, while keeping conflict between cars and human bodies at a minimum?

We also note that if it were December, we might’ve had to hop over piles of snow and try not to slip on the ice. 

“Ice is not our friend in winter,” Dorothy Jordan tells us on the sidewalk after hearing about our City-led mission.

Jordan works the desk at Kalamazoo Antiques. She wanted to send a message to the City about clearing the street and their sidewalk. “We had some real struggles this winter.”

No time for a long chat, so away we went. We had to reach the Mall.

Skeels made a right on the sidewalk on E. Michigan, making sure to take the crosswalk this time. 

One thing we noticed is that many pedestrian crossings have what new urbanists derisively call “beg buttons.” At the start of our journey, we stood at W. Lovell and the Kalamazoo Mall for most of a light cycle, waiting for the “WALK” signal. Then we realized we had to hit the button to be granted permission to cross.

When we did get the right of way, a right-turning car came at us. The driver stopped after seeing us in the crosswalk, so A+ for them being observant. There have been times Downtown when I’ve become Dustin Hoffman in a famous scene from “Midnight Cowboy.” “I’m walkin’ here!” 

One has to keep one’s head on a swivel, sometimes. Drivers can do the unexpected — this we were reminded of when on the sidewalk of E. Michigan.

Construction took up most of the sidewalk. We had to get onto the street, then squeeze between a dumpster, fencing, and a light pole. 

Not horrible for pedestrians who don’t have mobility issues, who aren’t pushing strollers, and aren’t carrying bags full of Downtown shopping, in the snow.

But it’s a reminder of an issue with the wide, one-way roads that have dominated Downtown since the mid-’60s. Back in August, someone sped around the curve at Portage going an estimated 100 MPH, lost control, and flew into the building with enough force that the damage is still not fixed. 

“Speed makes crashes”

April 28, at the Imagine Kalamazoo “Plans to Place” open house, the City had displays on coming placemaking efforts, the plans for the new Arcadia Creek Festival Place, and other future changes. But the big interest was in the coming “Streets for All” transformation of Downtown streets.

This year, Kalamazoo Avenue between Park and Pitcher will be under construction. This will expand in 2027 to the connections of Douglas, W. Main, and Michikal. Those are expected to be complete and open to two-way traffic in 2028. 

That year, Michigan Avenue will see construction. All is planned to be complete in 2031, when all major one-way streets (with the exception of Park and Westnedge) will have been converted to two-way.

City Traffic Engineer Dennis Randolph stood between a video animation showing how two-way Downtown traffic would work and a table with a long map detailing the future changes.

A man who says he’s driven in Kalamazoo since 1966 strongly insists that the changes will cause backups, and that there are backups right now. “It’s a congested mess!”

Randolph tells him, “I’ve been driving this street since 1972. I know how it backs up, bad.” 

Randolph has street cams feeding to live video in his office, he tells the man. He’s aware of how downtown traffic is now.

The question of how to fix it is one Randolph and the City have been looking at for a long time. This is the year they start to implement that fix.

There are plenty of angry drivers — as Facebook comments under posts about City changes show.

Randolph tells Second Wave later that he understands the need to talk to residents one-on-one about the plans. “I’ve gotten a lot of positive comments today, which is really nice. And we appreciate that,” he says.

It’s been a struggle for the City to communicate the need for the changes. “Part of it is just that people don’t always understand what we do. We don’t tell them very clearly. And I think something like this, where we can explain things to them, helps a lot. “

He’d faced a variety of opinions at the event. Randolph had negative comments from bicyclists who had gotten accustomed to the Michigan bike lanes. The plan now has diagonal parking along East Michigan instead of bike lanes, meaning bikers would have to ride the sidewalk to get to businesses there.

Residents’ hand-written notes stuck to maps detailing construction show a fear that residents between Douglas, W. Main, and Kalamazoo could be trapped in their homes during the work.

“People comment about the speed,” Randolph says. “One of the things we really want to do is deal with the speed, because speed makes crashes. That’s our whole objective. That’s our safe streets for all people — stop the crashes.” 

“What the heck is that?”

After the walking audit, the pedestrians met at Caffè Casa for a ped-debriefing.

The residents already had past experiences they wanted to share with the City. One woman talked about wandering around town looking for a bathroom for her kids. She finally went to a restaurant her friends owned. Public bathrooms Downtown are scarce.

She also realized something at the audit, that she’d never noticed the pedestrian crossing signs where Church crosses Michigan. 

Her audit route had her cross Church. She was looking for Walk/Don’t Walk signs, but there were none. “I was like, that’s weird,” she says. 

Instead, there’s a button to push that causes lights on the pedestrian crossing sign to flash, letting drivers know that they need to stop for whoever’s crossing. “I’ve not seen those before. I guess I’ve never really paid attention to them, so I was like, what the heck is that?”

She basically waited until traffic was clear and rushed across the three lanes.

The signs are a few years old, and it was nearly seven years ago that the City changed its ordinance that drivers must stop for people in crosswalks, Bergstrom says. 

Drivers should stop for walkers, but “‘Should’ and ‘do’ are two different things!” a pedestrian participant says, laughing.

There have been changes Downtown, and there will be many more. 

How will the City make it clear where drivers, walkers, and bikers can go? How will they keep everyone moving in a safe manner?

Will we eventually get “Streets For All?”

For later articles in this series, we’ll be asking that and many other questions.

If you missed your chance to see City plans and provide feedback, visit IK2035’s online feedback page.

Editor’s Note: This story is the second in a series that explores the ongoing transformation of downtown Kalamazoo. From a new arena rising to fresh businesses opening and festivals drawing crowds, these changes are redefining how we experience the heart of downtown. The City of Kalamazoo sponsors this series. All photos were taken by Mark Wedel.