I think people have the right to voice their concerns about this amount of money, the safety of their children and spouses and the overall community's growth needs. Sometimes if you get a number of suggestions, a better, cheaper and viable option appears that hadn't been discussed previously. Brainstorming is a fabulous concept.

Not if they run the path to a higher area along the side of the green belt, then bridge it. Why people make things much harder than they have to be?

satman,
I'm guessing, but I think an overpass would have to be very large. East Milwaukee Street is already elevated above the general level of the bike path. Then you have to make it high enough for a tractor/trailer to pass under. The slope of the approaches to an overpass would have to be flat enough to climb easily with a bike. This would make them either very long, or a large spiral.

The question is - did the city pay the 80K and have the water line moved? If so, what a waste of 80K. In WI, pedestrians have the right of way in a crosswalk. Change the flashing yellow to a push button red. Lots of options to get across the street besides a tunnel.

A suggestion for the bike crossing, dumb as it sounds, it could work. For $ 600,000. you could hire crossing guards at $ 20,000.00 per year to help the bikers walk thier bikes across the busy street, of course looking both ways and training the people at the same time on safe ways to cross the street. Or you could hire someone to hand each family a $ 10.00 bill to walk to the crosswalk, you would hand out 60,000 ten dollars bills, then ask those who received the money to buy a bicycle tag for $ 10.00 for one year. The next year you could collect the same fee and have the tunnel paid for.

Many of you have suggested going down to the intersection of Milwaukee and Wright Road, crossing 5 lanes (including left turn lane) and traveling back up Milwuakee to get to the bike trail. For people riding bikes you can get there by riding on the sidewalk or riding in the street. You also have to cross in front of the entrances of two car dealerships (one on your way down and one on your way back. Seems to me you have just now created a few more hazards for all those people walkers included. If you do not think you benefit from the bike trail, I suggest you get out and use it. Not everyone in the city has sidewalks, but I still see people walking on them!

What would the cost be to go up??? Build a bridge and get over it!!!!!!!!!!!

wait til someone gets hit by a car. then we can post comments about how we shoulda spent the money.....

OH - sorry, my mistake. Hats off to the City Manager as well. Hopefully his replacement will also have some common sense and the ability to count how many zeros are at the end of that price tag.......

luvujvl,
Actually, Mr. Sheiffer has halted the project. The comments by Amy and Paul were from the January meeting, where the project was NOT stopped, by the way. Lets give credit were credit is due. Maybe the many comments posted here back in January had some influence now that the price went up.

Unidentified, So you would route all that truck traffic down Milton ave, then up east milwaukee? Where would you have the trucks make the turn? The other option is to bring em up 51, make the turn at 5 points and turn the downtown area into the major truck route. Ain't happening.

How about this? Take the 700000 and buy up all of the fourth ward (actually it would probably only take 700 dollars instaed of 700 thousand) and tear down all the houses. Then build a nice aquatics center and a parking ramp. You then are eliminating urban blight and creating urban recreation that would draw everyone to the downtown area. Let the kids crossing Milwaukee play real life Frogger to get across

cjsmom, when you hear sirens... that's an indication to either pull over when you are driving or get out of the way as a pedestrian. It doesn't matter whether police or fire or ambulance need to go several miles or 2 feet from where you are standing, you have to get out of their way as they move to their emergency destination.

luvujvl couldn't have said it any better... why spend money just for convenience? Especially a price tag of $700,000?

First off there are no reason large tractor trailers need to go through this part of E. Milwaukee. I don’t understand the concept of having housing and pedestrian walkways on what the city is trying to turn into a major drive through. Put up a sign block large trucks and through traffic. All of the businesses on this road are past right road. This would eliminate some of the needless traffic. Secondly, if I’m not mistaken there is greenbelt there, which is lower and the path could be routed under E. Milwaukee through that point and the same green space could be used from the old path location. One would only be talking about 50 feet of greenbelt. Lastly, I think the idea of a bridge for walkers would work just fine. Those on bikes would follow a sign that directs them to the right road intersection to cross. The crosswalk could be widen and made more convenient, which would cost considerably less.

Sorry cjsmom, I understand where you're coming from, but for all of us to take a property tax bite to benefit a few of the community (not all of us will benefit from that), it seems too expensive and an unfair financial burden on the entire community when there is a much less expensive (FREE) alternative by just going down the block and waiting to cross. No offense but I think that's too big of a price tag.

I think the tunnel is a great idea. A few years ago my family and I were trying to cross milwaukee street there and the cars were stopping for us as we started to cross, but the fire truck that was coming did not even slow down a bit. Let's just say I almost got hit by that fire truck, which had only a couple blocks to go to its destination, the fire station, and why on earth wouldn't it have stopped for pedestrians in a crosswalk?? Very dangerous including that the fire station is right there and i hear sirens going a lot down there.

Thank you to all the Janesville citizens who voted for Paul Williams and Amy Loasching. Common sense and cost containment will benefit us all, and that seems to be what they are both promoting. It doesn't seem to be too much of a detriment for bikers or walkers to go down the block & cross where it is already available, versus over half a million dollars to make it more convenient... Times are tough and they'll only get tougher. Those dollars could be better spent a plethora of ways. Remember this the next time we vote for City Council.... at least there are two on board who have common sense. Thanks to both Paul and Amy for trying to save me (and us all) a buck or two - I could use it right about now and I'm sure you can too.

Go down to the corner and cross at the crosswalk.
It's worked for years.

If crossing the street is a safety concern as well as a funding issue - how much would a biking/pedestrian bridge over the street cost?

the world is screaming for green alternatives. here we have one of the oldest green machines there is the bike. my husband is an avid mountain biker ( he calls real biking ) i call it much safer. yes he falls and hits rocks and hurts himself. car or tuck + bike = dead. build a tunnel build a bridge i don't care but, do something. janesville doesn't have much more then the library to offer other then it's parks. make janesville the biking capitol of the state. the funds spent by bikers will more then pay for the safety if we provide it.

Why, asked a concerned citizen, couldn't the city do this right the first time?

The new price tag is because this project was way over-engineered. There are 2 huge culverts running beneath the road there now. It should not have taken that much to combine or enlarge them with a suitable path besides. The city made plans for a "taj mahal". I can't decide if the best solution is a tunnel or a bridge, but the absolute worst solution is what is there now. Flashing yellow sends confusing signals to local people and especially out of towners. It would seem to me that an island in the middle would require widening the road and cost a ton of money too. The three years of inactivity on city government's part will continue and the result will almost certainly be a serious injury or worse.

UH its called a bridge. then you don't have the feat of engineering to support a road and move all the underground cables pipes etc.

IF you don't make it a straight shot over then you won't have people riding fast onto it and possibly causing a larger issue.

How about putting a collection box at the crossing and those that use it can pay for the tunnel?

How about a big ol' teeth-jarring speed bump before the intersection? The raggedy railroad tracks in my town work the same wonder. You only fly over them once.

Also if the city would like to consider constructing something to encourage safety for it's citizens - I would think building a skatepark would be significantly better on a dollar for dollar level. As the users of such a place have limited options except using areas not designed for them(streets,parking lots, private property).

$705,000, what is it gold plated?

Well, a more aggressive approach could involve coupling a user controlled stop light with a camera for monitoring red light runnners. I would think just the posting of signs implying the use of such cameras would certainly encourage even the most hardened traffic offender to stop.

Also, I would assume any revenue earned off such a device could help recoup the costs of installing such a system.

Pedestrian-controlled lights are not considered an effective safety feature by traffic engineers. (Hey, we know that people will ignore flashing lights at RAILROAD crossings. If they're not scared of a train hitting them, them hitting a bike probably doesn't even chart.)
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Personally, I thought the tunnel was a good investment even at $475K, but I'm not so sure at $750K. It's worth exploring other options, such as revisiting the question of an overhead walkway. I'd hate to take it off the long-term agenda, but maybe for the moment it isn't affordable.
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Another option might be a traffic island halfway across. This would give bikers and hikers a safe refuge so that they only need to negotiate one direction of traffic at a time. The addition of a slight curve to both sides of the street to accomodate the island would act as a traffic calming device, alerting drivers. This is similar to the way bicycles and pedestrians are routed past modern roundabouts, which don't have stop signs.

I drive by the crossing at least twice a day, and it can be dangerous. The problems are twofold: Many drivers don't obey the yellow flashing lights and just drive through even if there are people by the curb, and many pedestrians/bicylists don't push the button in the first place. I think a red stop light would work fine in that location. If that doesn't work, then the city can investigate a tunnel. I thought $475k was too much back in January.

That would be a logical solution, getabike, but the city would have to spend $30,000 for a consultant to study the proposal, only to have the consultant come back and tell the city that red light bulb will cost $250,000!

Honesty, since the installation of the yellow flashers - I've found that most cars are fairly courteous to the users trying to cross Milwaukee St. However, you do have the occasional idiot who is either inattentive or rude. Would putting up a user controlled red light be a better option?