Why Don’t the Village Residents Cross the Road?
Allouez is a Village of 15,494 (2004) residents in the Green
Bay, Wisconsin metropolitan
area. The Village is bordered on the west side by
the Fox River. A
railroad bed along the Fox River was abandoned in the
1980s and turned into the Fox River Recreational Trail during the late 1990s. This trail runs from the City of Green
Bay through Allouez and on through the City of De
Pere. It is 16 miles long and ends in the rural
community of Greenleaf. As the trail has
increased in popularity, more people who live in Allouez have tried to access
it. But the access for residents has
been limited because there is a busy state connecting highway (Riverside
Drive/Highway 57) that runs parallel to the trail for the length of the
Village. Over 95 percent of the people
in Allouez live to the east of the highway and the trail. Along the four mile stretch of the highway in
the Village there is only one place that the vehicle traffic has to stop. That
is at the exit ramps for a freeway connection. There are no sidewalks or bike lanes on the
highway in the Village. When Allouez
residents want to walk and bicycle on the Fox River Trail, they get in their
cars and drive to a parking lot for one of the businesses that is west of Riverside
Drive or they go to De Pere or Green
Bay. The
Village is only 2 miles wide from west to east, so all residents live within 2
miles of the trail.
The policy and environmental change initiated by the Brown
County Health Department (BCHD), Village citizens and other partners, was to
identify the most reasonable crossing areas along Riverside Drive/Highway 57
and seek improvements by local governmental agencies. The effort is coordinated by the citizen based
committee, Allouez Walks and Bikes!, which started in
2003. Since that time the group has been working on the Riverside Drive/Highway
57 issues. The group has also branched out to look at all concerns with walking
and bicycling in the Village. The
project is an ongoing project; it takes time to make physical changes to
roadways and environments. The idea for
this project came from the people within the Village, including the project
director who lives about a half-mile from the trail.
The data that supports the desire of the BCHD to have a more
physically active community comes from the “Brown County Community Health
Status Report” updated in 2002 (1). In
the report, improving cardiovascular health was chosen as a top priority. To support that priority, data showed that Wisconsin
has one of the highest obesity rates in the nation. It was
also noted that the northeastern Wisconsin region has a
low rate of regular exercise among residents; estimated at 8 percent for the
period of 1996-2000. Also supporting the
effort was data from Active Living Research (2) that has shown there is a
direct correlation between how easy it is to travel in a community by walking
and bicycling and how much community members weigh.
The BCHD spearheaded the process with a health educator organizing
a “Walking Workshop” to explore the ideas and to get the input and buy in from
the community. The resulting committee,
Allouez Walks and Bikes!, is community- driven with a mix
of citizens and professionals needed to move projects forward.
Health Agency Roles
The BCHD health educator has taken on the role of secretary
for Allouez Walks and Bikes!. She sets the agenda, writes meeting notes and
sends meeting notices. This job is much easier and less expensive
using e-mail instead of traditional mailing and printing. The BCHD staff can support the committee, but
must always look to the committee members for ideas and projects of the
committee.
Partnerships and
Support
The BCHD partnered with the Wisconsin Department of
Transportation (WI DOT) for the initial funding of the Walking Workshop. Since
that time the following individuals and groups have been added to the committee
and regularly give input. All of these
groups and individuals have given support to the project and are on the e-mail
list to receive the monthly meeting notices and notes from the meetings.
Support for this project has been built by asking for help
and input from the key players at agencies and government in the area. The committee is always looking for citizen
input and interaction. Here are some
examples of how these people and agencies have been involved:
There is a dedicated group of about five citizens who
regularly come to the monthly meetings and give input. There are about fifteen others who are on the
e-mail list and will give help on specific projects. One of
the group members was recently elected as a Village Trustee and used membership
in Allouez Walks and Bikes! as a selling point for her
candidacy.
The staff at the Village Hall help
schedule dates and set up the meeting room.
The Parks Department and Public Works directors and the Village
Administrator all give input, help on projects and attend the monthly
meetings.
The Village Trustees are on the e-mail list and there is usually
at least one trustee at every meeting.
They have been receptive and respectful of requests when items have been
brought to the board meetings.
The Brown County Planning Department has helped in all
aspects of the project. The staff wrote
the professional report on Riverside Drive/Highway 57 crossings (3). They also worked
with the Village on the new comprehensive plan using smart growth principles
(4). The plan was adopted by the Village
Board in 2004. The comprehensive plan recommended items which will improve walking
and bicycling conditions in the Village.
The Brown County Highway,
Parks and Sheriff’s Departments provided information when asked and sent staff
to meetings as needed. The Fox River
Trail is owned by the WI DNR, but is managed by the Brown County Parks
Department. Allouez Avenue,
which intersects with Riverside Drive
is a county trunk highway. The Sheriff’s
Department officers who are contracted to work with the Village help with
traffic and safety issues as they arise.
The Green Bay Area Chamber of Commerce had a program called
the “Bay Area Community Health Partnership”.
This group helped to bring the information to the business community and
helped the businesses in the area to understand why better facilities for
walking and bicycling are a benefit to businesses and the community as a whole.
Key Events
Summer 2002:
Brown County Health Department staff reviewed past projects
that have received CDC Prevention and Promotion funding. Looking at the Brown County Community Health
Status Report being revised in 2002, it was decided to use the CDC Prevention
and Promotion funding for 2003 on projects that focus on cardiovascular risk
reduction. Using the example of
successful programs from the WI Tobacco Control Program, the staff decided to focus
the new program on policy and environmental change.
Key staff had been to a “Pedestrian Road Show” in another Wisconsin
community. Using that experience, the staff decided to
write an objective for the CDC Prevention and Promotion money that would be
used to start two community-based “Walking and Bicycling Advisory Groups” in
2003. The staff also wrote for a small
grant from WI DOT to pay for a consultant to come and run two kickoff events for
the two communities once they are chosen.
January to June 2003:
The BCHD health educator looked for two communities to have
“Walking Community Workshops”. She looked
for receptive communities with an obvious need for improvement in the
environment. She also looked for a single project within each
community that could be the focus of the workshop. One of the reasons Allouez was chosen is
because it is typical for families in the community to not allow children to go
to the trail from their homes. The
streets in the Village do not provide access to the trail and crossing
Riverside Drive/Highway 57 is dangerous.
Instead, the family will put all the bikes in their van and drive to Green
Bay or De Pere and the trail from there. But all the homes within Allouez are less
than 2 miles from the trail.
After Allouez was chosen, the BCHD organized the workshop
and made sure there was a mix of community residents and political leaders
along with staff of various governmental agencies attending the event.
June 2003:
The Walking Workshop was held at a restaurant located
between Riverside Drive and
the Fox River Trail. Twenty-two people
attended. They were sent out in four
groups to try to cross Riverside Drive
at different points. All the
participants managed to come back alive!
It was agreed that this is a huge problem. A list with short-term, midrange and long-term
goals was written at the meeting.
June 2003 to December
2003:
Using the list of people who attended the event and
enlisting more contacts, the BCHD organized a group which called itself
“Allouez Walks and Bikes!”. By the
end of the year they had monthly meetings and were looking at all issues
involving walking and bicycling in the community. During this process, a staff member of the
Brown County Planning Department was a key player. He offered to write a report (3) detailing
where the most likely crossing points are located. He reported community support helped him to justify
to his supervisor his time spent writing the report.
June to November 2004:
The Brown County Planning Department produced a report
detailing the five most obvious crossing points across Riverside
Drive to the Fox River Trail. During this process, drafts of the document were
brought to Allouez Walks and Bikes! at monthly meetings
for community input. One of the crossing points was eliminated from
the final report when the private, non-profit, property owner expressed
concerns for public use of his property.
The final report, released in
November 2004, had suggestions for four crossing points and other improvements
to the east of Riverside Drive
that will help the movement of pedestrians and bicyclists across the Village.
January 2005 to the
present:
Allouez Walks and Bikes! used the
planning department report to prioritize the four report suggestions. Two of the four suggestions are being worked
on at present.
The first one being investigated
is the suggestion to improve the intersection of Allouez
Avenue and Riverside Drive.
A 2-mile stretch of Allouez
Avenue is going to be rebuilt by the Brown County
Highway Department in the summer of 2006. The rebuilt road will have bike lanes which
it does not have now. There will also be
a sidewalk on the north side of the road.
There is not enough right-of-way to have sidewalks on both sides. The group is working with the property owner
on the east side of Riverside Drive
to give a permanent easement through the property to connect to the Fox River
Trail. When the project is done,
residents will be able to use Allouez Avenue to travel from the Fox River Trail
to the East River Trail which runs along the east side of the Village. Allouez
Walks and Bikes! is also working with the Village,
State and County officials to have a traffic signal at the intersection of Allouez
Avenue and Riverside
Drive to make crossing safer.
Another suggestion in the plan relates
to Heritage Hill
State Park which is run by a
private park board, but owned by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
The park has an underpass built below Riverside
Drive which only park patrons are currently
allowed to use. There have been
discussions with park personnel about opening the gates that lead to a side
road and letting the residents in the area use the underpass to cross Riverside
Drive as well. It is possible that a trial period will happen
in August 2005. It was also suggested that
a path run from Webster Avenue,
down Village of Allouez
property, across the corner of the Heritage
Hill Park
property to a street that runs alongside the park. This would increase the access to the trail
for people living farther east in the Village.
The area is being studied and may be cleared yet this summer for more
formal use in 2006.
Resources
Direct funding for this project has come from the Wisconsin
Division of Health, CDC Health Promotion and Prevention funding. This funding has allowed a BCHD Health
Educator to guide the Allouez Walks and Bikes! committee.
There was also a small grant from the WI
DOT for the initial Walking Workshop funding.
Other types of in-kind contributions have come from the
Brown County Planning Department, other Brown County Departments, the Village
of Allouez and WI DOT for allowing
employees to use official work time for this project. Contributions
were also made by the many community volunteers who have spent countless hours
researching and being a champion for this project and other projects that will
make the Village a safer and friendlier place to walk and bicycle. Allouez Walks and Bikes! has
also enjoyed support from Village of Allouez
Trustees who have backed the proposals in the Brown
County Planning Department report. WI Walks provided a facilitator for the
Walking Workshop and ongoing technical assistance. The committee has had help from the Friends
of the Fox River Trail, the Bay Shore Bike Club, WE BIKE, Wisconsin Walks and
other groups associated with walking and bicycling in the area.
The physical changes to the roadway will be funded by the
local government when the area is due to be reconstructed. Heritage
Hill State Park
may fund some of the improvements there, but Allouez Walks and Bikes! may have
to seek private contributions and in-kind help with some of the landscaping
issues. For some of the improvements,
funds can be sought from grant sources.
Outcomes
To measure the outcome of the changes, Allouez Walks and
Bikes! has access to monthly electronic user counts
that the Brown County Parks Department does on the Fox River Trail. They
have a counter at each end of the Village along the trail. The counts started
in 2001. The Parks Department is very willing to share that information with
the committee. There is also the
possibility of conducting a resident survey after some of the improvements are
complete. Currently, the number of people crossing Riverside
Drive to access the trail is limited to those who
are brave and have sprinting ability. Any kind of improved access across Riverside
Drive will increase the use of the trail by local
residents and cut down on the number of car trips that residents make to access
the trail.
Obstacles
There have been many challenges in moving this project
forward. One of the difficulties that was encountered is the fear of change. While the Heritage
Hill Park
property would seem a logical fit and is a publicly owned facility, there was resistance
by the park staff to change the status quo.
Money is also a major concern. For any major physical change to happen there
is a waiting period for other roadway construction to occur. It is almost impossible to make changes to a
roadway if the pavement and facilities are in good working condition for
vehicles. It would be difficult to
convince the Village Board to spend money on facilities for just pedestrians
and bicyclists. But when a roadway is being
reconstructed to make it better for vehicle traffic, changes to pedestrian and
bicycle facilities are much easier.
The many layers of government are also a problem for this
project. For the Riverside Drive/Highway
57 intersection we have three different agencies with some control over the
roadway. Consideration has to be given
to who has authority over the roadway. This
leads to conflict over which agency will pay for any changes.
Lessons Learned
Having a committee dedicated to walking and bicycling issues
is very important in most communities.
In the last 40 years the people who make the decisions about the
roadways and community property have engineered walking and bicycling out of the
process. Many of those same people are
still building the same kind of facilities in communities because no one is
asking for anything different. If there
is a committee that has input on how roads and public facilities are
maintained, it can make improvements when they are most cost effective. In Wisconsin,
the DOT has adopted a policy of “community sensitive design”, which means they will
look to the community for input when state owned roads are rebuilt or
added. If there is no organized voice in
the community for walking and bicycling issues, the WI DOT assumes the
community is not interested in those issues.
Then those issues are not addressed in the design phase of the roadway.
Cooperation from all the agencies that are involved with a project
should be expected. If it is not obtained,
be respectful and ask again for help from them. Treat all partners as partners
and think from the start that they have a stake in this project going well and
reflecting well on the community
The most important lesson learned is that if the residents
of a community do not ask why things are the way they are, nothing will ever
change. Complacency contributes to
inaction. Go out and start asking
questions of the people who have the answers and be persistent if there are strong
feelings. A lot of the time the answer to the question
will be that things can not be changed. But more often than not something good will happen.
.
Enhancements and
Modifications
There were some modifications to the plan for Riverside
Drive as the plan developed. As part of the report from the planning
department, there was an additional crossing suggestion. Because
this involved private property owned by a non-profit group, there was hope that
it could be included. But when Allouez
Walks and Bikes! contacted the non-profit group they had
too many concerns about liability and the misuse of the property by the general
public. They requested that the section
referring to their property be removed before the report was finalized.
There is also a Village park that would make a good
connection to the trail. But because of
past opposition by residents living near this park to anything that would bring
others into the area, this crossing was not investigated for the report. After there is success in the other areas and
all the Village residents see the benefit of what is happening, Allouez Walks
and Bikes! will try to make improvements in that area
too.
The BCHD has used CDC Health Promotion and Prevention
funding for projects dating back more than 20 years. It has been a steady source of funding for
projects that may take several years to complete. This funding helped to start up the Allouez
and Ashwaubenon walking and bicycling groups in 2003 and has provided funding
for staff to keep them operating.
Because of the success of these two groups, in 2005 more of the CDC
Health Promotion and Prevention funding is being used in this direction. The BCHD is working with Neighborhood
Associations in four areas of the City of Green Bay
to develop similar walking and bicycling advisory groups. The federal budget proposal for 2006 is looking
at eliminating the CDC Health Promotion and Prevention funding completely. The BCHD is looking at other avenues to fund
this important program, but at this point it is uncertain if the BCHD will be
able to continue staff support for any walking and bicycling advisory groups,
including Allouez Walks and Bikes!, in 2006.
References
(1) The
“Brown County Community Health Status Report, 2002” is available at the BCHD
website www.co.brown.wi.us/health
(2) Information
from Active Living Research can be found on their website www.activelivingresearch.org
(3) “Riverside
Drive Pedestrian Access Study, Potential Crossing Opportunities, 11/10/2004” is
available at the Brown County Planning Department website www.co.brown.wi.us/planning.html
(4) “Village
of Allouez, Comprehensive Plan” can be found at the Brown County Planning
Department website www.co.brown.wi.us/planning.html
Contact Information
a. Name:
Rebecca Meert, CHES
b. Title:
Health Educator
c. Organization:
Brown County Health Department
d. Address:
PO Box 23600, Green Bay
WI 54305-3600
e. Phone:
(920) 448-6438
f.
FAX: (920) 448-6449
g. E-mail:
Meert_BL@co.brown.wi.us
Map of Village of Allouez
