Residents asked for input on transportation issues in La Crosse

Four days of public meetings will begin Feb. 23

LA CROSSE, Wis. (WKBT) — Everything will be on the table as the city of La Crosse looks to its future transportation needs, and you’ll have a chance to give your input.

Next week the city of La Crosse will hold a four-day transportation study.

There are several opportunities for the public to voice its opinion on transportation-related issues and offer up solutions.

At the end of the four days, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation — which is doing its own transportation study this year — will know exactly what La Crosse residents want to see improved.

La Crosse Mayor Tim Kabat said before the state DOT looks for solutions to traffic problems in La Crosse, it needs to know where residents stand on issues.

“We know from in the past there’s going to be mistrust, there’s going to be skepticism on our residents’ part on just what it is that’s going to be proposed, so we want to get ahead of that by getting a strong city message so that it’s really clear and that we can go forward from there,” Kabat said.

Kabat is referring to the idea of a fourth north-south corridor going through La Crosse. He said it has been proven La Crosse residents don’t want that.

“Point blank we asked the DOT through our process, let’s take the 4th corridor off the table because nobody is going to support that. Let’s really start to work on things that people can really support,” Kabat said.

“The city is going to do their study and get information together that we’re going to take and, hopefully, incorporate as much of that as we can into our study moving forward, and try to take their vision of where they want the city to go and incorporate that as much as possible into the larger transportation system that we’re looking at,” said Andy Winga, Wisconsin DOT project manager of the Coulee Region Transportation Study.

To find out what it is that La Crosse residents want, the city’s planning department will host four days of public meetings asking for input.

“I think we have this one last chance to come to consensus within the community and the region on how we are going to move throughout our region. And so we need to hear public input, we need to decide as a community what we want that to look like in the future,” said Amy Peterson, interim director of planning with the city of La Crosse.

“It’s important for the city to really put it down on the table as far as what we’re recommending and what we feel strongly about,” said Kabat.

Kabat hopes the public will be able to help find ways to improve the flow of traffic along the current three corridors through La Crosse, as well as help identify dangerous intersections that have a lot of accidents.

The following upcoming meetings on the transportation vision for the future will be held at the Myrick Park Center, 789 Myrick Park Drive in La Crosse:

Public Meeting – Monday, February 23 at 7 p.m. – An opening presentation about the vision process including a question and answer session.
Open Studio – Wednesday, February 25 at 1-3 p.m. – Members of the public will be able to visit the consultants’ studio to give input and see the work in progress.
Pin Up Session – Wednesday, February 25 from 5- 6:30 p.m. – The consultants will display the documents and visual aids to guide citizens through the visioning process up to this point.
Public Meeting – Tuesday, February 26 at 7 p.m. – A closing meeting to review the week and conclude with recommendations for a final transportation vision.

Click for more information on the Transportation Visioning Process

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