Two construction projects this fall seek to slow motor vehicles and make streets safer near UWM’s campus, whether you’re walking, biking, in a car or taking the bus.
Curb extensions
Concrete curb extensions and high-visibility crosswalks have been placed at selected intersections on E. Kenwood Blvd. and N. Downer Ave. as well as along North Ave. The changes are designed to shorten crossing distances for pedestrians, discourage vehicles from passing on the right, slow vehicle speeds along Downer and Kenwood, prevent illegal parking, and increase yielding to pedestrians. Similar changes have been implemented across Milwaukee since 2020.
Edgewood Ave. resurfacing
A paving project on E. Edgewood Ave. is scheduled to begin Wednesday, Nov. 1. This three-day project involves removing the existing pavement and resurfacing with asphalt. All work is weather dependent and subject to change.
Edgewood Ave. will be closed to traffic starting at 6:30 a.m. and will re-open when work has concluded each day. The intersection of N. Downer Ave. will remain open as much as possible, while N. Oakland Ave. and N. Lake Drive will remain open to traffic at all times.
Local access to adjacent properties will be maintained as much as possible during the project. On-street parking will not be allowed within the construction limits.
Advisory bike lanes
The Edgewood Ave. work will include a new traffic configuration called advisory bike lanes.
The bike lanes are new to Milwaukee and define a preferred space for bicyclists and motorists to operate on narrow and low-volume streets. Streets with advisory bike lanes have a single, center travel lane that is shared by drivers traveling in both directions, as well as dashed bike lanes next to parking lanes. Bicyclists have the right-of-way in the dashed bike lanes.
After looking out for, slowing and yielding to bicyclists, drivers merge into the advisory bike lanes to pass each other safely (similar to the maneuver motorists use when passing on narrow residential streets near UWM lined with parked cars). This traffic configuration was chosen due to the combination of a narrow street and on-street parking on both sides of Edgewood Ave., which will remain.
The lanes are new to the area, so the City of Milwaukee and Village of Shorewood have created a website to help explain the new layout as well as receive feedback. For more on this street configuration, please see several short videos created when these lanes were created in Fort Collins, Colorado, and Ann Arbor, Michigan.
