Westwood Safety

WESTWOOD NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION

A Safer West Main Street:

The Kalamazoo Ave redesign project being undertaken by the City of Kalamazoo is in the planning and design phase right now, with construction slated for next year. The preliminary redesign for the bottom of W. Main Hill by Douglas and K. College has caused concerns among neighbors about the long-term design of W. Main. The main issue is that MDOT controls most of the street right of way, so city staff must conform their plans to what MDOT's design is further up the hill, even though they would prefer a safer configuration.

With the help of some neighbors from Stuart and W. Main Hill, a  group gathered stories and data around the current design of W. Main and found it is quite unsafe in its current form, burdens residents and businesses, and that it doesn't need to be this way.

They have it on good authority that MDOT is willing to entertain a safer design for W. Main, but is not likely to do so unless some of the public entities come together to voice approval for this change. Neighborhood leaders around W. Main say that they believe a vast majority of residents would prefer a safer configuration.

So, the group has written a petition to encourage MDOT to work with the local municipalities to redesign W. Main, so when construction work starts next year, the configuration of the road can change along all of W. Main (from Douglas to Solon/Kendall) and make it safer for everyone with minimal impact to traffic flow. They already have secured endorsements from Kalamazoo County commissioners, Kalamazoo City commissioners, and some local organizations/businesses.

The petition lists the number of crashes we’ve seen grow in number and a comparison to Oakland Drive.

The petition also sights the three-lane concept of an east, west and a left turn lane all the way from the foot of Main Street hill to Solon/Kendall, but it opens the discussion about ways to make the street safer for all users.

Our ask: We are requesting that you review the below petition and consider signing it so MDOT will see the concern the neighborhood has for safety on West Main Street.

We don't want to miss our narrow window of opportunity to coordinate with the construction work already happening next year at the bottom of the hill.

https://www.change.org/p/make-w-main-safer-reduce-to-3-lanes-now

Thank you for your consideration,

Ron Huster 

We need to do our part - See Something, Say Something.  The police can't be everywhere, all the time so we need to help.