Last Thursday I published a story highlighting some of the items on that night’s City Council agenda. One of the items I left out of that story is likely to be the most exciting. It wasn’t an oversight, I just hadn’t gathered all the info yet. But now I have so let’s dig in to the improvements coming to West Essex.
More specifically we are talking about the small but important stretch of Essex between Kirkwood Rd and Geyer. While it mostly consists of single family housing this stretch also includes several small businesses and some missing middle multi-family residences. The road itself as it is currently comprised has one 15-foot wide lane in either direction, an 8-foot wide buffer and a 4 foot wide sidewalk on both sides. On street parking is allowed in some spots and at sometimes but it’s spotty.
The Plan
To add all the features that are to be added Essex must first be widened from 30 feet to 34 feet wide. Normally this would be very concerning, but in this case they use the extra space well. Car lanes are reduced from 15 feet down to 10 feet a-piece, the width that is considered best practice and a goal that we failed to achieve as recently as the re-design of Woodbine and its 11-foot lanes a couple years back. So that a huge win right off the bat even if it goes largely unnoticed. In addition to narrowing car lanes, which tends to encourage slower and more cautious driving, five foot wide bike lanes are also added in both directions. Those bike lanes are separated from traffic by a two-foot wide buffer zone. It remains to be seen if that buffer will include any physical barrier (the distinction that turns a bike lane into a protected bike lane). While a separated and raised bike lane between the sidewalk and the road like you see in Europe was on the table, it ultimately got shot down at the public forums, which is disappointing with regards to public sentiment but probably wasn’t necessary anyway. Also included in the plans are widening sidewalks on both sides of Essex from the existing four feet to five, a change we could really use right about now!
Perhaps the most exciting and progressive of the changes coming to Essex however, is the use of curb bump-outs at intersections throughout. These bump-outs both increase the turn radius car must make typically causing them to make slower more cautious turns as well as reducing the distance and time pedestrians must be in the street to get from one sidewalk to another.
Funding
This project is partially so small in scope because it is effectively being funded by federal grants which we were recommended for by the East-West Gateway. These Federal STP funds cover $1,517,600 of the $2,107,000 total price tag with the city covering the rest. I’m not sure how many we grants we apply for currently but we should apply to more. Free money for a better Kirkwood is a pretty sick gig.
Where We Fall Short
The biggest disappointment for was its lack of mid-block crosswalks (although, to call them mid block would be to mis-characterize, it’s just the ends of the blocks North of Essex don’t align with those South of it). One such crosswalk currently exists at Essex’s intersection with Clay (at the far right triangle in the above picture) but it appears, based on the curb cuts depicted in the plans, that even that lone crosswalk will not be maintained in the newest iteration of the street. Ideally three crosswalks would exist between Geyer and Kirkwood, one each (from left to right) at N. Van Buren, N. Harrison and N. Clay. Preferably these would be raised crosswalks in the form of speed tables that would also serve to slow down traffic but a crosswalk of any sort would be better than nothing.
The one other obvious shortcoming (although perhaps technically outside of the project’s scope it would’ve been worth the extra couple grand), is located at the project’s western terminus: the Geyer-Essex intersection. The northwest corner of this intersection features a slip lane so that cars traveling South can turn right on Essex towards Kirkwood High School without coming to a stop. These more obtuse angles tend to encourage drivers to drive faster and bear a closer resemblance to a highway on-ramp than a neighborhood intersection. If Kirkwood is going to encourage more cyclists to use Essex as a thoroughfare, they can’t just throw them into the line of fire with a yield sign.
That’s it for now, hope all is well and I’ll see you next week.