Letter: Bus. 51 lane reduction will be bad for business
Editor’s note: The December 2021 resolution from the Portage Co. Board of Supervisors was to “strongly disagree,” not censure, the city over the Bus. 51 proposed plans. Also, a “road diet” is not two lanes, but rather one lane of traffic in each direction with a center-turn lane.
To the Editor-
Vote yes on the August 9 referendum regarding Stevens Point road projects
The City of Stevens Point city council has approved a change from a four-lane road to a two-lane road with a center turning lane on Church Street and Division Street (Business 51). This reduction in the number of lanes is referred to as a road diet. The road diet will have an irreversible impact on Stevens Point for up to 50 years. The August 9 road project referendum is necessary to preserve Business 51 as a four-lane road.
A yes vote on the August 9 road project referendum is necessary for the following reasons:
Business 51 will be unsafe.
- The Portage County Sheriff has expressed his concerns that the road diet will make Business 51 less safe and severely limit the ability of law enforcement and emergency vehicles to travel on Business 51. The Portage County board of supervisors at the end of last year formally censured the city of Stevens Point citing safety concerns over the Business 51 redesign project.
- The road diet may result in making Business 51 unsafe for all modes of transportation. In California, there was a .8-mile stretch of road that had a road diet. The road diet resulted in increased auto collisions by 18 percent and resulted in a 48 percent increase in traffic-related injuries.
- Michigan State University analyzed the impact of road diets from four-lane roads to three-lane roads at 24 road diet projects in Michigan. This study indicates that a four- to three-lane road diet conversion results in a significant increase in traffic delays for roads with more than 10,000 average daily traffic. Business 51 has up to 13,700 cars per day. This Michigan State study also indicates that the road diet did not make the 24 roads safer. In Oregon, a road diet was projected by the city of Portland to add three minutes to commute times.
- The traffic delays will force motorists to choose alternative roads (like Minnesota, Michigan Avenue, and Water Street) since no one wants to have unnecessary traffic delays. These side streets will not be safe with the increase in traffic on roads that are not designed for additional road travel. Business 51 is currently designed as a thoroughfare for citizens to drive by car through Stevens Point and Plover.
- The road diet on Business 51 includes having bike lanes. Business 51 has up to 13,700 cars per day thus riding a bike on a road with this traffic will result in an unsafe conditions for bikers. Bike riders can instead use the existing sidewalks to ride their bikes on Business 51 and this will protect bike riders from car traffic. In 2021, the Minnesota Department of Transportation in an article entitled Minnesota’s Best Practices for Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety concluded that bike lanes are likely to be comfortable for bicyclists of all ages when traffic volumes are less than 6,000 vehicles per day. Thus, bicyclists are unlikely to use the bike lanes on Church Street if the road diet project progressed since there are up to 13,700 cars per day on Church Street, however, the bicyclists riding their bikes on Church Street will be at significant peril due to the traffic volume on the street.
Businesses will close on Business 51 and taxes will go up.
- The road diet will result in businesses closing and a reduction in property values. In Los Angeles, the road diet project on the .8-mile stretch of the Mar Vista neighborhood resulted in 21 businesses closing within 17 months of the completion of the road diet project. The Mar Vista road diet was so detrimental to the area that Los Angeles decided to restore the road to its prior number of lanes. Stevens Point should not take such a chance to have such a detrimental impact on the business community.
- In an article in New Geography entitled “When it Comes to Road Diets, Small Businesses are the Biggest Loser,” there are several examples of cities where businesses closed shortly after a road diet. Motorists attempt to avoid areas of congestion and the car traffic will need to find alternative roads to travel on.
- Motorists may decide to take routes through residential areas. The average daily traffic numbers are a key determinant when businesses decide upon a location. There are numerous businesses that will consider the properties located on the Business 51 corridor to be less valuable when the average daily traffic declines.
- A reduction in property values will also ultimately result in a reduction in property tax revenue for the city and the city to recoup this tax revenue will need to increase property taxes for the rest of the taxpayers. This roadway is called Business 51 for a reason, this area is intended to be a business corridor but may become a business wasteland if there is no vote on the referendum.
- Scott Beduhn, the Stevens Point Director of Public Works, stated that keeping Business 51 four lanes versus two lanes will save the taxpayers $6.9 million dollars.
Impact of $1 million road project needing taxpayer approval.
- The August 9 referendum will require the City of Stevens Point to seek the approval of the taxpayers only if the road project costs the city of Stevens Point more than $1 million. In the last nine years, there have only been seven Stevens Point road projects that have cost the city more than $1 million dollars. The city receives the majority of funds from the state and federal government for road projects and the city will receive even more funds with the federal government’s new road infrastructure bill. For the avoidance of doubt, this means that a Stevens Point road project that costs $5 million and the city receives $4.5 million of federal funding, will not need to receive approval by the taxpayers.
- The Stevens Point city planners work on plans for road projects several years before beginning road construction projects. The need for public approval for projects will not be delayed because city planners will take into consideration the need for public approval in the limited situations that such approval is needed.
In conclusion, it is critical that the citizens of Stevens Point vote yes on the August 9 road project referendum. A yes vote is critically needed to help prevent the redesign of Business 51. The reduction of Business 51 to two lanes plus a turning lane and bike lanes will make the road less safe if the road maintained the same level of traffic.
The reality is that motorists are more likely to seek less safe alternative roads which will increase the chance of pedestrian and vehicle accidents on these roads; thus there will be fewer cars traveling past the great businesses on the Business 51 corridor and this will create a potential business wasteland.
Joe Fonti
Stevens Point